nder which he came into our neighborhood"--

"Providential fiddlesticks!" said Miss Emily, with heightened color,
"_I_ believe you knew that boy's mother."

This sudden thrust brought a vivid color into Mr. Sewell's cheeks. To be
interrupted so unceremoniously, in the midst of so very proper and
ministerial a remark, was rather provoking, and he answered, with some
asperity,--

"And suppose I had, Emily, and supposing there were any painful subject
connected with this past event, you might have sufficient forbearance
not to try to make me speak on what I do not wish to talk of."

Mr. Sewell was one of your gentle, dignified men, from whom Heaven
deliver an inquisitive female friend! If such people would only get
angry, and blow some unbecoming blast, one might make something of them;
but speaking, as they always do, from the serene heights of immaculate
propriety, one gets in the wrong before one knows it, and has nothing
for it but to beg pardon. Miss Emily had, however, a feminine resource:
she began to cry--wisely confining herself to the simple eloquence of
tears and sobs. Mr. Sewell sat as awkwardly as if he had trodden on a
kitten's toe, or brushed down a china cup, feeling as if he were a
great, horrid, clumsy boor, and his poor little sister a martyr.

"Come, Emily," he said, in a softer tone, when the sobs subsided a
little.

But Emily didn't "come," but went at it with a fresh burst. Mr. Sewell
had a vision like that which drowning men are said to have, in which all
Miss Emily's sisterly devotions, stocking-darnings, account-keepings,
nursings and tendings, and infinite self-sacrifices, rose up before him:
and there she was--crying!

"I'm sorry I spoke harshly, Emily. Come, come; that's a good girl."

"I'm a silly fool," said Miss Emily, lifting her head, and wiping the
tears from her merry little eyes, as she went on winding her silk.

"Perhaps he will tell me now," she thought, as she wound.

But he didn't.

"What I was going to say, Emily," said her brother, "was, that I thought
it would be a good plan for little Mara to come sometimes with Moses;
and then, by observing her more particularly, you might be of use to
her; her little, active mind needs good practical guidance like yours."

Mr. Sewell spoke in a gentle, flattering tone, and Miss Emily was
flattered; but she soon saw that she had gained nothing by the whole
breeze, except a little kind of dread, which made her inwardly resolve
neve