their social position is somewhat equivocal, and having lived all their
lives in the house of their father, seeing as he sees, thinking as he
thinks, they can hardly be expected to appear more than a brace of
immature Joe Stimpsons. They are not, it is true, tainted with much of
the world's wickedness, neither have they its self-sustaining trials,
its hopes, its fears, its honest struggles, or that experience which is
gathered only by men who quit, when they can quit it, the petticoat
string, and the paternal despotism of even a happy home. As for the old
couple, time, although silvering the temples and furrowing the front, is
hardly seen to lay his heavy hand upon the shoulder of either, much less
to put his finger on eyes, ears, or lips--the two first being yet as
"wide awake," and the last as open to a joke, or any other good thing,
as ever they were; in sooth, it is no unpleasing sight to see this jolly
old couple with nearly three half centuries to answer for, their
affection unimpaired, faculties unclouded, and temper undisturbed by the
near approach, beyond hope of respite, of that stealthy foe whose
assured advent strikes terror to us all. Joe Stimpson, if he thinks of
death at all, thinks of him as a pitiful rascal, to be kicked down
stairs by the family physician; the Bible of the old lady is seldom far
from her hand, and its consolations are cheering, calming, and assuring.
The peevish fretfulness of age has nothing in common with man or wife,
unless when Joe, exasperated with his evangelical daughters' continual
absence at the class-meetings, and love-feasts, and prayer-meetings,
somewhat indignantly complains, that "so long as they can get to heaven,
they don't care who goes to ----," a place that Virgil and Tasso have
taken much pains in describing, but which the old gentleman sufficiently
indicates by one emphatic monosyllable.

Joe is a liberal-minded man, hates cant and humbug, and has no
prejudices--hating the French he will not acknowledge is a prejudice,
but considers the bounden duty of an Englishman; and, though fierce
enough upon other subjects of taxation, thinks no price too high for
drubbing them. He was once prevailed upon to attempt a journey to Paris;
but having got to Calais, insisted upon returning by the next packet,
swearing it was a shabby concern, and he had seen enough of it.

He takes in the _Gentleman's Magazine,_ because his father did it before
him--but he never reads it; he take