an' who you was with, I'll screw the neck off of
you. Nice thing while you're a child an' looking to me for everythink
that goes into your stummick an' is put on your back, an' I'm
responsible for you, that you can't answer me civil. Your actions
can't bear lookin' into, it seems. I'll go over an' see Mr Bray about
it this afternoon if you don't tell me at once."

"I ain't been anywhere, only pokin' up an' down the lanes with Jack
Bray."

"Well, why couldn't you say so at once without raisin' this rumpus.
Them as has rared any boys don't know what it is to die of idleness
an' want of vexation."

"It wasn't _me_ rose the rumpus. Some people always blames others for
what they do themselves: it 'u'd give a bloke th' pip," grumbled
Andrew, as I put the last stitch in his trousers and his grandma
departed. Her black Sunday dress rustled aggressively, and her plain
bibless holland apron, which she never took off except when her bonnet
went on for street appearance or when she went to bed, and her little
Quaker collars and cuffs of muslin edged with lace, were even more
immaculate than on week-days. She scorned a cap, and her features were
so well cut that she looked well with the grey hair--wonderfully
plentiful and wavy for one of her years,--simply parted and tidily
coiled at the back. This costume or toilet, always fresh and never
shabby, was invariably completed by a style of light house-boots,
introduced to me as "lastings"; and there was an unimpaired vigour of
intellect in their wearer good to contemplate in a woman of the people
aged seventy-five.

It came on to rain after dinner and confined us all to the house.

Dawn borrowed an exciting love-story from Miss Flipp; grandma read a
"good" book; Uncle Jake still pored over the 'Noonoon Advertiser,'
while Andrew repaired a large amount of fishing-tackle, with which
during the time I knew him I never knew him to catch a fish, and Carry
grumbled about the rain.

"Poor Carry!" sympathised Andrew, "she can't git out to do a spoon
with Larry, an' the poor bloke can't come in--he's so sweet, you know,
a drop of rain would melt him."

"It would take something to melt you," retorted Carry. "The only thing
I can see good in the rain is that it will keep Mrs Bray away."

And thus passed my first full day at Clay's.

SEVEN.

THE LITTLE TOWN OF NOONOON.

The little town, situated whereaway it does not particularly matter,
and whose name is a palindrome, is o