boards of
the long wooden bridge between the towns, and opened them when we
stopped at an inn by the water side of Milford. Father took me into a
parlor, where sat a handsome, fat woman, hemming towels.

"Is that you, Morgeson?" she said. "Is this your daughter?"

"Yes; can I leave her with you, while I go to the bank? She has not
been here before."

"Lord ha' mercy on us; you clip her wings, don't you? Come here,
child, and let me pull off your pelisse."

I went to her with a haughty air; it did not please me to hear my
father called "Morgeson," by a person unknown to me. She understood my
expression, and looked up at father; they both smiled, and I was vexed
with him for his unwarrantable familiarity. Pinching my cheek with her
fat fingers, which were covered with red and green rings, she said,
"We shall do very well together. What a pretty silk pelisse, and
silver buckles, too."

After father went out, and my bonnet was disposed of, Mrs. Tabor gave
me a huge piece of delicious sponge-cake, which softened me somewhat.

"What is your name, dear?"

"Morgeson."

"It is easy to see that."

"Well, Cassandra."

"Oh, what a lovely name," and she drew from her workbasket a
paper-covered book; "there is no name in this novel half so pretty; I
wish the heroine's name had been Cassandra instead of Aldebrante."

"Let me see it," I begged.

"There is a horrid monk in it"; but she gave it to me, and was
presently called out. I devoured its pages, and for the only time in
that year of Barmouth life, I forgot my own wants and woes. She saw
my interest in the book when she came back, and coaxed it from me,
offering me more cake, which I accepted. She told me that she had
known father for years, and that he kept his horse at the inn stables,
and dined with her. "But I never knew that he had a daughter," she
continued. "Are you the only child?"

"I have a sister," and after a moment remembered that I had a brother,
too; but did not think it a fact necessary to mention.

"I have no children."

"But you have novels to read."

She laughed, and by the time father returned we were quite chatty.
After dinner I asked him to go to some shops with me. He took me to a
jeweler's, and without consulting me bought an immense mosaic brooch,
with a ruined castle on it, and a pretty ring with a gold stone.

"Is there anything more?" he asked, "you would like?"

"Yes, I want a pink calico dress."

"Why?"

"Because the girls a