mach, they
wouldn't want to swallow an apothecary-shop every year."

"Did you ever!" said Mrs. Plausaby, looking at her husband, who smiled
knowingly (as much as to reply that he had often), and at Cousin Isa, who
looked perplexed between her admiration at a certain chivalrous courage
in Albert's devotion to his ideas, and her surprise at the ultraism of
his opinions.

"Did you ever!" said the mother again. "That's carrying notions further
than your father did. You'll never be anything, Albert. Well, well, what
comfort can I take in a boy that'll turn his back on all his chances,
and never be anything but a poor preacher, without money enough to make
your mother a Christmas present of a--a piece of ribbon?"

"Why, ma, you've got ribbons enough now, I'm sure," said Katy, looking at
the queer tri-color which her mother was flying in revolutionary defiance
of the despotism of good taste. "I'm sure I'm glad Albert's going to be a
minister. He'll look so splendid in the pulpit! What kind of a preacher
will you be, Albert?"

"I hope it'll be Episcopal, or any way Presbyterian," said Mrs. Plausaby,
"for they get paid better than Methodist or Baptist. And besides, it's
genteel to be Episcopal. But, I suppose, some notion'll keep you out of
being Episcopal too. You'll try to be just as poor and ungenteel as you
can. Folks with notions always do."

"If I was going to be a minister, I would find out the poorest sect in
the country, the one that all your genteel folks turned up their noses
at--the Winnebrenarians, or the Mennonites, or the Albrights, or
something of that sort. I would join such a sect, and live and work for
the poor--"

"Yes, I'll be bound!" said Mrs. Plausaby, feeling of her breastpin to be
sure it was in the right place.

"But I'll never be a parson. I hope I'm too honest. Half the preachers
are dishonest."

Then, seeing Isa's look of horrified surprise, Albert added: "Not in
money matters, but in matters of opinion. They do not deal honestly with
themselves or other people. Ministers are about as unfair as pettifoggers
in their way of arguing, and not more than one in twenty of them is brave
enough to tell the whole truth."

"Such notions! such notions!" cried Mrs. Plausaby.

And Cousin Isa--Miss Isabel Marlay, I should say for she was only a
cousin by brevet--here joined valiant battle in favor of the clergy. And
poor little Katy, who dearly loved to take sides with her friends, found
her sympathie