Phoebe, that I--that
I think I will, if you'll excuse me, take another rounder." Which he
did, seeming to be greatly restored by it.

They were now both standing by the side of her couch, and she was working
at her lace-pillow. "Your daughter tells me," said Barbox Brothers,
still in a half-reluctant shamefaced way, "that she never sits up."

"No, sir, nor never has done. You see, her mother (who died when she was
a year and two months old) was subject to very bad fits, and as she had
never mentioned to me that she _was_ subject to fits, they couldn't be
guarded against. Consequently, she dropped the baby when took, and this
happened."

"It was very wrong of her," said Barbox Brothers with a knitted 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 knew 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 be went into it.

Lamps was beginning,