he takes her up,
bless her!"

"May I ask poor Bet to spend Thursday afternoon with me, Uncle Bobo?"
Joy asked one hot August morning as she was ready for school. "_May_
I, please? It's early closing day, and we have a half-holiday. Dear
Goody Patience says she will take us to the sands, and perhaps Jim
Curtis may give us a row. I _should_ like that."

"Well, I have no objection, my pretty one; the poor thing has no
treats!"

"Treats! Oh, Uncle Bobo, she is miserable! Her grandmother is so
sharp, and tells her she is a useless fright, and things like that.
And then there's her Uncle Joe, he is horrid!"

Mr. Boyd laughed.

"Ah, ah! Miss Pinckney's suitor; he isn't very nice, I must say."

"Suitor, Uncle Bobo; what's a suitor?"

"You'll know time enough, my dear, time enough. You'll have a score of
them, I dare say; and I hope not one of them will be like Master
Skinner, that's all. He's like one of the lean kine you read to me
about last Sunday in the Bible. But leanness is no sin; p'r'aps he'll
get fatter by-and-by."

Little Miss Joy was mystified, and repeated to herself, and then aloud:

"Does suitor mean the same as 'young man' and 'lover,' I wonder?"

"Bless the child's innocence! Yes, my dear, you've got it now."

"But, Uncle Bobo, could an old, old lady like Miss Pinckney have a
suitor?"

"Oh, yes, my dear, yes! She set her cap at me once. She is--well--not
much short of fifty; that's a girl, you know. All are girls till they
marry; old girls, we call them!"

"But my dear Goody Patience is ever so much younger, and oh! she said
last night, 'I don't feel as if I was ever young, or a girl,' and then
she looked so sad."

"Ah! my dear, she has had a sight of trouble, has poor Mrs. Harrison.
First, her husband making off, leaving a good business--a very good
business here, as a master of a lot of herring boats, with a share in
one of the big curing houses where the bloaters are the best to be had
in the trade. But my young man must needs be off whaling, and never
came back again. Poor Patience! It's a sad story. For my part, I
wish she would call herself a widow and have done with it. There's
some one ready enough to make her a happy wife."

"Really, Mr. Boyd, if I was you I would not put such nonsense into the
child's head," said the good old servant. She had lived behind the
little dark shop for some thirty years, and now came forward into the
light, blinking as an owl might bli