a Arabella. "Such a mind as
that girl has, Mr. Danby," she would say to her husband, "it isn't for
us to comprehend. She might have come just so out of a book, Amanda
might." And Mr. Danby would nod a pleased and puzzled assent, vaguely
wondering how long he could manage to hold his high parental state over
so gifted a creature.

Amanda Arabella's strong points were poetry and sentiment. To be sure,
she scrubbed the floor and washed the dishes, but she did these menial
duties "with her head in the clouds," as she herself had confessed to
her mother. Her soul was above it, and as soon as she could, she
intended to "go somewhere and perfect herself." This idea of going
somewhere to perfect herself was one which she had entertained in secret
for some time, though she had not the slightest idea of where she could
go, and in just what way she was to be perfected. She only knew that, at
present, housework and the nine brothers and sisters were quite as much
as she could attend to, excepting at odd moments when "the poetry fit
was on her," as her mother expressed it--"and then wild horses couldn't
stop her!"

"I can't deny, Mr. Reed," said that proud mother to her kind
neighbor,--who, on the morning after the interview with Donald and
Dorothy in his study, had halted at Mrs. Danby's whitewashed gate, to
wish her a stately "Good-morning, madam!" and to ask after her
family,--"I can't deny, and be honest, that I'm uncommon blest in my
children, though the Lord has seen fit to give us more than a extra lot
of 'em. They're peart and sound as heart could wish, and so knowin'!
Why," she continued, lowering her voice and drawing closer to the gate,
"there's my Fandy now, only eight years old, can preach 'most like a
parson! It'd rise your hair with surprise to hear him. An' Ben, my
oldest boy, has had such adventures, an' haps an' mishaps, as ought to
be writ out in a birogrophy. An' there's Amanda Arabella, my
daughter--well, if I only could set down the workin's o' my brain as
that girl can, I'd do! She has got a most uncommon lively brain. Why,
the other day--but all this time you're standin', Mr. Reed. Won't you
walk in, sir? Well, certainly, sir, it ain't to be 'xpected you _could_
take time goin' by so, as you are--Well, my 'Mandy, sir, only the other
day was a-comin' out into the shed with a pan o' dish-water, and she
sees a rainbow. 'Ma!' says she, a-callin' me, 'take this 'ere
dish-water!' and before I knowed it, she was a