This was said so exactly with the voice and manner of a famous preacher of
our Meeting that even I, a lad then of only eight years, recognised the
imitation. Indeed, she was wonderful at this trick of mimicry, a thing most
odious to Friends. As I smiled, hearing her, I was aware of my father in
the open doorway of the sitting-room, tall, strong, with much iron-gray
hair. Within I saw several Friends, large rosy men in drab, with horn
buttons and straight collars, their stout legs clad in dark silk hose,
without the paste or silver buckles then in use. All wore broad-brimmed,
low beavers, and their gold-headed canes rested between their knees.

My father said to me, in his sharp way, "Take thy noise out into the
orchard. The child disturbs us, wife. Thou shouldst know better. A
committee of overseers is with me." He disliked the name Marie, and was
never heard to use it, nor even its English equivalent.

Upon this the dear lady murmured, "Let us fly, Hugh," and she ran on tiptoe
along the hall with me, while my father closed the door. "Come," she added,
"and see the floor. I am proud of it. We have friends to eat dinner with us
at two."

The great room where we took our meals is still clear in my mind. The floor
was two inches deep in white sand, in which were carefully traced zigzag
lines, with odd patterns in the corners. A bare table of well-rubbed
mahogany stood in the middle, with a thin board or two laid on the sand,
that the table might be set without disturbing the patterns, In the corners
were glass-covered buffets, full of silver and Delft ware; and a punch-bowl
of Chelsea was on the broad window-ledge, with a silver-mounted cocoanut
ladle.