which could ever say with truth that disappointment had come of it."

"I reckon they should be unready to confess the same," saith she.

"They be ready enough to confess it of other things," quoth Aunt
_Joyce_. "But few folks will learn by the blunders of any but their own
selves. I would thou didst."

"By whose blunders would you have me learn, _Aunt_?" saith _Milly_ in
her saucy fashion that is yet so bright and coaxing that she rarely gets
flitten [scolded] for the same.

"By those of whomsoever thou seest to blunder," quoth she.

"That must needs be thee, _Edith_," saith _Milly_ in a demure voice.
"For it standeth with reason, as thou very well wist, that I shall never
see mine elders to make no blunders of no sort whatever."

"Thou art a saucy baggage, _Milly_," quoth Aunt _Joyce_. "That shall
cost thee six pence an' it go down in the chronicle."

"Oh, 'tis not yet my turn for to write, _Aunt_. And I am well assured
_Nell_ shall pay no sixpences."

"Fewer than thou, I dare guess," saith Aunt _Joyce_. "Who has been to
visit old _Jack Benn_ this week?"

"Not I, _Aunt_," quoth _Edith_, somewhat wearily, as if she feared Aunt
_Joyce_ should bid her go.

"Oh, I'll go and see him!" cries _Milly_. "There is nought one half so
diverting in all the vale as old _Jack_. _Aunt_, be all _Brownists_ as
queer as he?"

"Nay, I reckon _Jack_ hath some queer notions of his own, apart from his
_Brownery_," quoth she. "But, _Milly_,--be diverted as much as thou
wilt, but let not the old man see that thou art a-laughing at him."

"All right, _Aunt_!" saith _Milly_, cheerily. "Come, _Nell_. _Edith_
shall bide at home, that can I see."

So _Milly_ and I set forth to visit old _Jack_, and _Mother_ gave us a
bottle of cordial water, and a little basket of fresh eggs, for to take
withal.

He dwells all alone, doth old _Jack_, in a mud cot part-way up the
mountain, that he did build himself, ere the aches in his bones 'gan
trouble him, that he might scantly work. He is one of those queer folk
that call themselves _Brownists_, and would fain have some better
religion than they may find at church. _Jack_ is nigh alway reading of
his Bible, but never no man could so much as guess the strange meanings
he brings forth of the words. I reckon, as Aunt _Joyce_ saith, there is
more _Jack_ than _Brownist_ in them.

We found _Jack_ sitting in the porch, his great Bible on his knees. He
looked up when he heard our voices