a Reddy.'

'Looked down upon!' cried Samson. 'Where's the Reddy as can count acre
for acre agen us, or guinea for guinea?'

'The Reddy's is fairly well-to-do, Samson,' said Mrs. Mountain; 'very
nigh as well-to-do as we be.'

'Pooh!' returned Samson.

'Oh, but they be, though,' his wife insisted. 'Pretty near. There's
nothing so much between us as'd prevent 'em from taking airs with us if
they could find out anything to do it for.'

'If they could!' Samson assented. 'Abel Eeddy was a bragger and a
boaster from his cradle days.'

'That's where it is,' cried Mrs. Mountain, in a tone which implied
that Samson had made a discovery of the first importance, and that this
discovery unexpectedly confirmed her own argument. 'Let 'em have the
least little bit of a chance for a brag, and where be you?'

'You might trust 'em to tek advantage on it if they had it,' said her
husband.

'Of course you might,' said she, with warmth, 'and that's why I'm
fearful on it.'

'Fearful o' what?' demanded Samson.

'O' these here scornful fine-gentleman ways as'll be a thorn in our
Joe's side as long as he lives, poor little chap, unless we put him in
the way to combat again 'em.'

'Ah!' Samson growled, suddenly enlightened. 'I see now what thee beest
drivin' at. Now, you take a straight sayin' from me, Mary Ann. I'll have
no fine-mouthed, false-natur'd corruption i' my household. If the Reddys
choose to breed up that young imp of theirn to drawl fine and to talk
smooth above his station--let 'em.'

'Well, Samson,' returned Mrs. Mountain, who knew by long experience when
her husband was malleable, 'you know best, and you're the master here,
as it's on'y fit and becomin' an' in the rightful nature o' things as
you should be.'

The first effect of the oil of flattery seemed to be to harden him.

'I be, and I mean to be,' he answered, with added surliness. 'If the
speech and the clothes and the vittles as have been good enough for me
ain't good enough for any young upstart as may follow after me, it _is_
a pity.'

Mary Ann kept silence and looked meek. Samson growled and bullied a
little, and wore the airs of a dictator. By and by a serving-maid came
in and began to arrange the table for tea, and a little later a boy and
a girl stole noiselessly into the room.

'Joe,' said Samson sternly, 'come here!' The boy approached him with
evident dread. 'What's this I hear about thee and that young villin of a
Reddy?'

'I don't know, f