de to the history of an encounter with a mermaid, which
alternated with the Flying Dutchman and a combat with the Moors, as
regular entertainment at the Sunday meal.

When Mrs. Woodford went upstairs she was met by the servant Nicolas,
declaring that she might get whom she would to wait on that there
moon-calf, he would not go neist the spiteful thing, and exhibiting
a swollen finger, stung by a dead wasp, which Peregrine had
cunningly disposed on the edge of his empty plate.

She soothed the man's wrath, and healed his wound as best she might,
ere returning to her patient, who looked at her with an impish grin
on his lips, and yet human deprecation in his eyes. Feeling
unprepared for discussion, she merely asked whether the dinner had
been relished, and sat down to her book; but there was a grave,
sorrowful expression on her countenance, and, after an interval of
lying back uneasily in his chair, he exclaimed, "It is of no use; I
could not help it. It is my nature."

"It is the nature of many lads to be mischievous," she answered;
"but grace can cure them."

Therewith she began to read aloud. She had bought the Pilgrim's
Progress (the first part) from a hawker, and she was glad to have at
hand something that could hardly be condemned as frivolous or
prelatical. The spell of the marvellous book fell on Peregrine; he
listened intently, and craved ever to hear more, not being yet able
to read without pain and dizziness. He was struck by hearing that
the dream of Christian's adventures had visited that same tinker,
whose congregation his own wicked practices had broken up.

"He would take me for one of the hobgoblins that beset Master
Christian."

"Nay," said Mrs. Woodford, "he would say you were Christian
floundering in the Slough of Despond, and deeming yourself one of
its efts or tadpoles."

He made no answer, but on the whole behaved so well that the next
day Mrs. Woodford ventured to bring her little daughter in after
having extracted a promise that there should be no tricks nor
teasing, a pledge honourably kept.

Anne did not like the prospect of the interview. "Oh, ma'am, don't
leave me alone with him!" she said. "Do you know what he did to
Mistress Martha Browning, his own cousin, you know, who lives at
Emsworth with her aunt? He put a horsehair slily round her glass of
wine, and tipped it over her best gray taffeta, and her aunt whipped
her for the stain. She never would say it was his doing, a