brow,
"to marry you, making a secret of her infirmity."

"Well, sir," pleaded Lamps, in behalf of the long-deceased. "You see,
Phoebe and me, we have talked that over too. And Lord bless us! Such a
number on us has our infirmities, what with fits, and what with misfits,
of one sort and another, that if we confessed to 'em all before we got
married, most of us might never get married."

"Might not that be for the better?"

"Not in this case, sir," said Phoebe, giving her hand to her father.

"No, not in this case, sir," said her father, patting it between his own.

"You correct me," returned Barbox Brothers, with a blush; "and I must
look so like a Brute, that at all events it would be superfluous in me to
confess to _that_ infirmity. I wish you would tell me a little more
about yourselves. I hardly know how to ask it of you, for I am conscious
that I have a bad stiff manner, a dull discouraging way with me, but I
wish you would."

"With all our hearts, sir," returned Lamps, gaily, for both. "And first
of all, that you may know my name--"

"Stay!" interposed the visitor, with a slight flush. "What signifies
your name! Lamps is name enough for me. I like it. It is bright and
expressive. What do I want more!"

"Why to be sure, sir," returned Lamps. "I have in general no other name
down at the Junction; but I thought, on account of your being here as a
first-class single, in a private character, that you might--"

The visitor waved the thought away with his hand, and Lamps acknowledged
the mark of confidence by taking another rounder.

"You are hard-worked, I take for granted?" said Barbox Brothers, when the
subject of the rounder came out of it much dirtier than he went into it.

Lamps was beginning, "Not particular so"--when his daughter took him up.

"O yes, sir, he is very hard-worked. Fourteen, fifteen, eighteen, hours
a day. Sometimes twenty-four hours at a time."

"And you," said Barbox Brothers, "what with your school, Phoebe, and what
with your lace-making--"

"But my school is a pleasure to me," she interrupted, opening her brown
eyes wider, as if surprised to find him so obtuse. "I began it when I
was but a child, because it brought me and other children into company,
don't you see? _That_ was not work. I carry it on still, because it
keeps children about me. _That_ is not work. I do it as love, not as
work. Then my lace-pillow;" her busy hands had stopped, as if her
argument