“And Miss Tryphosa, did I understand you to say you apprehend anything in her quarter from the Pilgrims?” enquired Coristine.

“Please say Tryphosa, sir; I do not think that young girls in service should be miss’d.”

“But they are very much missed when they go away and get married; don’t grudge me my little joke, Mrs. Hill.”

“I would not grudge you anything so poor,” she replied, shaking a forefinger at the blushing lawyer.  “You are right in supposing I apprehend danger to Tryphosa from the younger Pilgrim.  She is—­well, something like what I was when I was young, and she is only a child yet, though well grown.  Then, this younger Pilgrim has neither money nor farm; besides, I am told, that he has imbibed infidel notions, and has lately become the inmate of a disreputable country tavern.  If you had a daughter, sir, would you not tremble to think of her linking her lot with so worthless a character?” Before the lawyer could reply, the old man called back:  “Mother, I think you had better give the gentleman a rest; he must be tired of hearing your tongue go like a cow-bell in fly time.”  Coristine protested, but his companion declined to continue the conversation.

“The mistress is as proud of wagging that old tongue of hers,” remarked the dominie’s companion, “as if she had half the larnin’ of the country, and she no more nor a third class county certificut.”

“Many excellent teachers have begun on them,” remarked Wilkinson.

“But she begun and ended there; the next certificut she got was a marriage one, and, in a few years, she had a class in her own house to tache and slipper.”

“Your wife seems to be a very superior woman, Mr. Hill.”

“That’s where the shoe pinches me.  Shuparior! it’s that she thinks herself, and looks down on my book larnin’ that’s as good as her own.  But, I’ll tell ye, sir, I’ve read Shakespeare and she hasn’t, not a word.”

“How is that?”

“Her folks were a sort of Lutherian Dutch they call Brethren.  They’re powerful strict, and think it a mortal sin to touch a card or read a play.  My own folks were what they called black-mouthed Prosbytarians, from the north of Ireland, but aijewcation made me liberal-minded.  It never had that effect on the mistress, although her own taycher was an old Scotch wife that spent her time tayching the childer Scott, and Pollok’s ‘Course of Time,’ and old Scotch ballads like that Packman one she was reciting to your friend.  Now, I larnt my boys and gyurls, when I was school tayching, some pieces of Shakespeare, and got them to declaim at the school exhibitions before the holidays.  I minded some of them after I was married, and, one day when it was raining hard, I declaimed a lovely piece before Persis, that’s the mistress’ name, when the woman began to cry, and fell on her knees by the old settle, and prayed like a born praycher.  She thought I had gone out of my mind; so, after that, I had to keep Shakespeare to myself.  Sometimes I’ve seen Tryphosa take up the book and read a bit, but Rufus, that’s the baby, is just like his mother—­he’ll neither play a card, nor read a play, nor smoke, nor tell lies.  I dunno what to do with the boy at all, at all.”