ous about them."

"Nothing wrong with their health, I hope?" asked the lawyer.

"No, sir; in a bodily way they enjoy excellent health."

"Pardon me, Mrs. Hill," interrupted Coristine, "for saying that your
perfectly correct expression calls up that of a friend of mine. Meeting
an old college professor, very stiff and precise in manner and language,
he had occasion to tell him that, as a student, he had enjoyed very poor
health. 'I do not know about the enjoying of it, sir,' he answered, 'but
I know your health was very poor.' Ha, ha! but I interrupted you."

"I was going to say, sir, that I have never been ambitious, save to keep
a good name and live a humbly useful life, with food convenient for me,
as Agur, the son of Jakeh, says in the Book of Proverbs, in which, I
suppose, he included clothing and shelter, but I did hope my girls would
look higher than the Pilgrims."

"You don't mean John Bunyan's Christian and Christiana, and Great Heart,
and the rest of them?"

"Oh, no!" replied the old lady, laughing, "mine are living characters,
quite unknown to the readers of books, Sylvanus and Timotheus, the sons
of old Saul Pilgrim."

"Oh, that's their name, is it? The Crew never told me his surname, nor
did Captain Thomas."

"You know Sylvanus' captain, then? But, has he many sailors besides
Pilgrim?"

"No; that's why I call him The Crew. It's like a Scotch song, 'The Kitty
of Loch Goil,' that goes:--

For a' oor haill ship's companie,
Was twa laddy and a poy, prave poys

Sylvanus is The Crew, who goes on a cruise, like Crusoe. O, do forgive
me, Mrs. Hill, for so forgetting myself; we have been so long away from
ladies' society," which, considering the circumstances of the preceding
day, was hardly an ingenuous statement.

"I am not so troubled about the elder Pilgrim and Tryphena," continued
the old lady, "because Tryphena is getting up a little in years for the
country; I believe they marry later in the city, Mr. Coristine?"

"O yes, always, very much, I'm sure," answered the lawyer, confusedly.

"Tryphena is getting up, and--well, she takes after her father in looks,
but will make any man a good wife. Then the elder Pilgrim has good
morals, and is affectionate, soft I should be disposed to call him; and
he has regular employment all the year round, though often away from
home. He has money saved and in the bank, and has a hundred-acre farm in
the back country somewhere. He says, if Tryphena ref