t out; and he has a pretty daughter, Margot, who sweeps
into the room like a little queen, and, being older than ourselves,
patronizes us till we blush. She rattles off all the town talk, the
parties in the winter season, the terrible master of the academy, and
the handsomest boys, including Barret, who is dissipated and writes
poetry; the beauty of Marian Lee, who seems to be the terror of young
gentlemen, though Margot don't see any thing in her, the proud piece!

And so we pick up the history of the village with the diligence of
Froissart or Jean de Troyes, and eat last winter's apples by the ruddy
grate, listening to Margot, with our very round tow head upon our
sister's, filled with vague dreams of greatness and wealth, and old
Yeasty's silver half dollars piled up around us, and Margot to chat at
our side forever.

Oh! innocent days of itinerant urchinhood, your freshness comes no
more; we "move on" as of old--waifs in the wide circuit of this nomad
life--but with the hymns which lulled us in the neglected
meeting-house, the prophecies they told us of toil, duty, reverence,
and content, have floated into heaven whither our father has gone!

The bulk of our furniture being delayed, and our mother impatient of
accepting hospitality, we move into the great, bare parsonage house on
Saturday, and sit in the only furnished room. It grieves even
ourselves to see how this merry moving has thinned her anxious white
face, and therefore we forbear to fret her when we read the three long
Bible chapters she exacts. Josh, our brother, does not purposely
pronounce physician "physiken," as he is in the habit of doing, and
our sister remembers for once that ewe lamb is to be called "yo," and
not "e-we" in two syllables. The dinner is quite cold, but Josh, who
complains, is reminded of the poor Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, who
could not afford salt with his potatoes. Josh says that for his part
he don't like potatoes anyhow, and will not be comforted.

In the afternoon we present ourselves at Sunday-school, and as the
preacher's sons are supposed to be first-class ecclesiastical
scholars, are put in the Bible-class. Here we surprise everybody by
the quantity of verses we know by heart, and get many red and blue
tickets for our reward. It must be confessed that we had been twice
before paid for the same lesson, it being our perquisite to carry all
that we know from school to school. We see Margot among the girls,
swinging her fe