She sent out the two youngest, put little Edward in his chair, and breakfast began.

“Mrs. Morgeson,” said Charles, “the horses will be ready to take you round Rosville.  We will call on Dr. Price, for you to see the kind of master Cassandra will have.  I have already spoken to him about receiving a new pupil.”

“Oh, I am homesick at the idea of school and a master,” I said.

Mother tried in vain to look hard-hearted, and to persuade that it was good for me, but she lost her appetite, with the thought of losing me, which the mention of Dr. Price brought home.  The breakfast was as well adapted to a delicate taste as the preceding supper.  The ham was most savory, but cut in such thin slices that it curled; and the biscuits were as white and feathery as snowflakes.  I think also that the boiled eggs were smaller than any I had seen.  Cousin Alice gave unremitting attention to Edward, who ate as little as the rest.

“Mother,” I said afterward, “I am afraid I am an animal.  Did you notice how little the Morgesons ate?”

“I noticed how elegant their table appointments were, and I shall buy new china in Boston to-morrow.  I wish Hepsey would not load our table as she does.”

“Hepsey is a good woman, mother; do give my love to her.  Now that I think of it, she was always making up some nice dish; tell her I remember it, will you?”

When Cousin Charles put us into the carriage, and hoisted little Edward on the front seat, mother noticed that two men held the horses, and that they were not the same he had driven the night before.  She said she was afraid to go, they looked ungovernable; but he reassured her, and one of the men averring that Mr. Morgeson could drive anything, she repressed her fears, and we drove out of the yard behind a pair of horses that stood on their hind legs as often as that position was compatible with the necessity they were under of getting on, for they evidently understood that they were guided by a firm hand.  Edward was delighted with their behavior, and for the first time I saw his father smile on him.

“These are fine brutes,” he said, not taking his eyes from them; “but they are not equal to my mare, Nell.  Alice is afraid of her; but I hope that you, Cassandra, will ride with me sometimes when I drive her.”

“Oh!” exclaimed mother, grasping my arm.

“You would, would you?” he said, taking out the whip, as the horses recoiled from a man who lay by the roadside, leaping so high that the harness seemed rattling from their backs.  He struck them, and said, “Go on now, go on, devils.”  There was no further trouble.  He encouraged mother not to be afraid, looking keenly at me.  I looked back at him.

“How much worse is the mare, cousin Charles?”

“You shall see.”