and impoliteness in a _Christian_ female. But we must not judge,"
Mrs. Drayton ended, with what Willy King called her "holy look." Without
wishing to "judge," it may be said that, in the matter of manners, Miss
Mary North, palpitatingly anxious to be polite, told the truth; and as
everybody knows, truthfulness and agreeable manners are often divorced
on the ground of incompatibility. Miss North said things that other
people only thought. When Mrs. Willy King remarked that, though she did
not pretend to be a good house-keeper, she had the backs of her pictures
dusted every other day, Miss North, her chin trembling with shyness,
said, with a panting smile:

"That's not good house-keeping; it's foolish waste of time." And when
Neddy Dilworth's wife confessed coquettishly, that one would hardly take
her to be a year or two older than her husband, would one? Mary North
exclaimed, in utter astonishment: "is that all? Why, you look twelve
years older!" Of course such truthfulness was far from genteel,--though
Old Chester was not as displeased as you might have supposed.

While Miss North, timorous and sincere (and determined to be polite),
was putting the house in order before sending for her mother, Old
Chester invited her to tea, and asked her many questions about Letty and
the late Mr. North. But nobody asked whether she knew that her opposite
neighbor, Captain Price, might have been her father--at least that was
the way Miss Ellen's girls expressed it. Captain Price himself did not
enlighten the daughter he did not have; but he went rolling across the
street, and pulling off his big shabby felt hat, stood at the foot of
the steps, and roared out: "Morning! Anything I can do for you?" Miss
North, indoors, hanging window-curtains, her mouth full of tacks, shook
her head. Then she removed the tacks and came to the front door.

"Do you smoke, sir?"

Captain Price removed his pipe from his mouth and looked at it. "Why! I
believe I do, sometimes," he said.

"I inquired," said Miss North, smiling tremulously, her hands gripped
hard together, "because, if you do, I will ask you to desist when
passing our windows."

Captain Price was so dumfounded that for a moment words failed him. Then
he said, meekly, "Does your mother object to tobacco smoke, ma'am?"

"It is injurious to all ladies' throats," Miss North explained, her
voice quivering and determined.

"Does your mother resemble you, madam?" said Captain Price, slowly.