other inmates of the house, however, she was a special
favorite, and many were the kind turns which she had done for the lame
woman, whom Miss Grundy took delight in reminding that "she didn't
half earn the salt to her porridge."

Next to the wig, nothing more annoyed Miss Grundy than to see Sal,
with grammar in hand, perched upon the window sill or table, and
repeating at the top of her voice the "rules," of which every fourth
one seemed to have been made with direct reference to herself. But it
was of no use for Miss Grundy to complain of this, for as Sal said,
"Mr. Parker merely winked at it as the vagaries of a disordered mind,"
and she was free to quote her grammar from morning till night.
Whenever she was crazier than usual, her command of language was
proportionately greater, and her references to her grammar more
frequent, while no one in the house could venture a remark without
being immediately corrected for some impropriety of speech.

Uncle Peter, who had a high opinion of Sally's abilities, always did
his best to converse as she directed, but in her "inspired days" even
he became utterly confounded, and once when in one of her lofty
strains, she had labored hard to impress upon him the all-important
fact that _adjectives_ are frequently changed into _adverbs_ by the
suffix "ly," the old man, quite out of his wits with his efforts to
understand and profit by her teachings, was guilty of a laughable
blunder.

"Uncle Peter," said she, "did you notice how unusually funnily Miss
Grundy's wig was arranged at dinner to-day?"

Thinking that he fully understood the reply which he was expected to
make, and anxious to make amends for his former stupidity, Uncle Peter
promptly replied, "No, madam I did not-_ly_.'"

The look of horror which Sally's face assumed, convinced Uncle Peter
that he had failed in his attempts at speaking grammatically, and with
a sudden determination never again to try, he precipitately left the
house, and for the next two hours amused himself by playing "Bruce's
Address" upon his old cracked fiddle. From that time Sal gave up all
hopes of educating Uncle Peter, and confined herself mostly to
literary efforts, of which we shall speak hereafter.

The night following Sal's first acquaintance with Mary, Alice cried
until nearly day dawn. The milk which Miss Grundy's stinginess allowed
her, was not particularly conducive to her health, and besides that,
she missed the invigorating bath to w