ght of
Martha Browning's solemn face"--Peregrine drew his countenance down
into a portentous length--"her horror at the slightest word or
sport, her stiff broomstick carriage, all impelled me to the most
impish tricks. And now--letting alone that pock-marks have seamed
her grim face till she is as ugly as Alecto--she is a Precisian of
the Precisians. I declare our household is in her eyes sinfully
free! If she can hammer out a text of Scripture, and write her name
in characters as big and gawky as herself, 'tis as far as her
education has carried her, save in pickling, preserving, stitchery,
and clear starching, the only arts not sinful in her eyes. If I am
to have a broomstick, I had rather ride off on one at once to the
Witches' Sabbath on the Wartburg than be tied to one for life."

"I should think she would scarce accept you."

"There's no such hope. She has been bred up to regard one of us as
her lot, and she would accept me without a murmur if I were
Beelzebub himself, horns and tail and all! Why, she ogles me with
her gooseberry eyes already, and treats me as a chattel of her own."

"Hush, hush, Peregrine! I cannot have you talk thus. If your
father had such designs, it would be unworthy of us to favour you in
crossing them."

"Nay, madam, he hath never expressed them as yet. Only my mother
and brother both refer to his purpose, and if I could show myself
contracted to a young lady of good birth and education, he cannot
gainsay; it might yet save me from what I will not and cannot
endure. Not that such is by any means my chief and only motive. I
have loved Mistress Anne with all my heart ever since she shone upon
me like a being from a better world when I lay sick here. She has
the same power of hushing the wild goblin within me as you have,
madam. I am another man with her, as I am with you. It is my only
hope! Give me that hope, and I shall be able to endure patiently.--
Ah! what have I done? Have I said too much?"

He had talked longer and more eagerly than would have been good for
the invalid even if the topic had been less agitating, and the
emotion caused by this unexpected complication, consternation at the
difficulties she foresaw, and the present difficulty of framing a
reply, were altogether too much for Mrs. Woodford. She turned
deadly white, and gasped for breath, so that Peregrine, in terror,
dashed off in search of the maids, exclaiming that their mistress
was in a swoon.