send Jim and
Silvy away," writes madam, "but the poor rascals have no place to go
to."

Silvy was a tricksome spright that delighted in breaking bottles of the
"best Madeira wine and spilling the contents over the new English
carpet" when the mistress had invited the parson's and the doctor's
families to dinner. This, though of course it was "not to be endured,"
might have been accidental, and so was very "tolerable" in comparison
with Silvy's next exploits of poisoning the beloved house-dog and
throwing by the roadside the bottle of wine--possibly emptied first--the
jar of jelly and the fresh quarter of lamb which had been sent to a poor
and sick old woman. These two offences, occurring on the same day, we
are sorry to confess, incited the stately, white-handed dame to do
something more decisive than to "deliver a lecture" to Silvy. It is
demurely recorded that "for these two misdeeds I whipped Silvy." What
effect the whipping had upon that somewhat too frolicsome damsel we are
not informed, but madam admits that it made herself ill, and adds that
"if Silvy does not reform it is impossible to see what can be done for
her, for she will not listen to remonstrance. Betsey is not strong
enough to punish so strapping a wench, and it does not seem right that a
man should be set to whip any woman or girl, even a wench, else Jack
could do it."

However, Jack's own patience having been tried by the refractory Silvy,
he seems to have taken the matter into his own hands, for his mistress
tells us how she was scandalized, on her return from church, by "finding
Jack whipping Silvy," while that young lady was "screaming vehemently,
so that all the people passing by could hear her." As Jack had
discovered Silvy engaged in the amiable diversion of breaking the legs
of the young calves by throwing stones at them, one can have a little
charity for his summary action, although, as madam gravely remarks, "he
might at least have waited until Monday."

The calves, by the way, had an unlucky winter of it, and were especially
shaky about the legs. We find that a few weeks later "Jack having
neglected to repair the barn floor, as he had been directed, a plank had
given way and three of the calves' legs had been broken by the fall." We
have felt a deep interest in the fate of these calves, but with all our
anxiety have failed to discover whether three calves had all their legs
broken, or only three legs in all had been sacrificed to Jack's