decidedly modified amount of reverence in the way
in which they insisted,

"You must comb out your curls, Uncle Rowland."

"And I'll tie your cravat for you, sir, and make you quite smart. We are
not to appear abroad with a country bumpkin or a fright of a student,
are we, Prissy?"

And mutual jokes were bandied pretty freely.

"Now, Prissy, are we to see the famous Traveller?"

"No, sir, it is to be the Virtuoso, with the mock copper coins."

"Bronze, child, bronze."

"We're to have nobody in particular, only Lady Betty," chimed in the
more girlish voice. "The company, the other gentlefolks, will be quite
sufficient besides."

"And Fiddy will scream when the blunderbusses are fired. Shall we
take the precaution of putting cotton in her ears beforehand?"
derided the man.

Then the single lady fixed further, that Prissy (Mistress Priscilla,
doubtless, in company down in Somersetshire) was the cleverest and most
forward, and that Fiddy (Mistress Fidelia) was the shyest and, perhaps,
the prettiest, for she was clearly Uncle Rowland's favourite. But then,
for all her rosy cheeks, poor child! she was delicate, since there was a
constant cry from the conductor of the party, "Fiddy, you vain doll,
remember your mantle; Madam is not here to wrap you up, nor Granny."

"Oh, sir! we've lots of scarfs and shawls, all for Fiddy; and she is to
tie on her Iris hood against the draughts."

"What! one of the poppies and bluebells that Will Honeycomb admired?
She'll beat you, Prissy, out and out. I would sicken and bear her
company."

"I wonder to hear you, sir. I can tell you, Granny would not coddle me
so. Granny is always preaching of hardening weakness."

"Ah, the old mother is no milksop!"

There, was she not right? Had she not full hints of the history of the
Vicarage and madam its mistress, the mother of these two little
girls; and of the parish priest her husband, their father--the younger
brother of the tolerably educated squire yonder, with his Larks' Hall;
and of Granny, who kept house there still for her elder son, where she
had once reigned queen paramount in the hearty days of her homely
goodman. It was a scroll fairly unfolded, and perfectly legible to the
experienced woman.

"Uncle Rowland," prefaced the soft voice, more quietly, "do you really
think the gay world of the town so much more vicious than the sober
world of the country?"

"Why, no, my dear," answered the manly voice, now graver, and with