Joanna Southcott; but this beats old Margery's doings at Gethin."

"Hush, hush!" whispered his mother, for Charley's high spirits and
audacity always terrified her when exhibited in his father's presence:
"they have found they have a common acquaintance, and so made friends."

"Father didn't know Swedenborg, did he?" answered the young man, slyly.
"My belief is, he has fallen in love with her. I saw a black cat on the
stairs. She can make any body do it, as I was telling Aggey" (the young
rogue had been to Soho since the morning); "I shall be the next victim,
no doubt. It's no use saying to myself, 'Thou shalt not marry thy
grandmother.' Her charms are too powerful for the rubric. You'll see
she'll not say grace."

Mr. Charles was right in that particular of his diagnosis of their new
guest. Mrs. Basil did treat that devotional formula, which Mrs. Coe
never omitted to pronounce, in spite of her husband's contemptuous
shrugs, with considerable indifference. She sat opposite to Charley, and
more than once, when he looked up suddenly, he caught her gaze fixed
earnestly upon him. Those wondrous eyes of hers yet shone forth bright
and clear; her cheeks were still smooth; and, though her brow had many a
wrinkle, they were the footprints of thought and care, rather than of
years.

The conversation, as was natural where the company and the guest were
strangers to each other, turned upon the topics of the day, and the
objects in the room, some of which, as we know, were sufficiently
remarkable. At Charley's request Mrs. Basil once more narrated the story
of the skull; and then epitomized, with caustic tongue, the biography of
poor Joanna. Up stairs, she said, she had one of that lady's "seals"--a
passport to eternal bliss--which she would bestow as a present upon the
young gentleman opposite. Her cynical humor delighted Charley, and won
the approbation of his father--not the less so, perhaps, since he saw it
annoyed his wife.

Poor Harry was a simple well-meaning woman in her way, and, had the
circumstances of her life been less exceptional, would have earned the
reputation of a good creature and steadfast chapel-goer. But our lives
do not always fall in the places most suitable to our dispositions; the
restive are often compelled to run in harness; and the quiet low-action
goers, who would welcome restraint, are left without guide, and with no
course marked out for them. Thus it was with Mrs. Coe. The situation in
which F