Oh, the wenches, the wenches! Are they not all alike, mother?"

"They have changed none since I was a lass," replies the quiet invalid,
with a smile. "And you should know what I was, Henry."

"I know!" cries he; "none better. Well I recall the salmon and white
your mother gave you before I came to Salem." He sighed and then laughed
at the recollection. "And when this strapping young Singleton comes,
Richard, 'twould do you good to be hiding there in that cupboard,--and it
would hold you,--and count the seconds until Miss Prim has her skirt in
her hand and her foot on the lower step. And yet how innocent is she now
before you and me."

Here he would invariably be smothered.

"Percy Singleton!" says Patty, with a fine scorn; "'twill be Mr.
Eglinton, the curate, next."

"This I know," says her father, slapping me on the shoulder, "this I
know, that you are content to see Richard without primping."

"But I have known Richard since I was six," says she. "Richard is one
of the family. There is no need of disguise from him."

I thought, ruefully enough, that it seemed my fate to be one of the
family everywhere I went.

And just then, as if in judgment, the gate snapped and the knocker
sounded, and Patty leaped down with a blush. "What said I say?" cries
the barrister. "I have not seen human nature in court for naught. Run,