uses him, he will
continue to risk his life among the perils of the deep, by which the
silly fellow means Lake Simcoe." Here the quondam schoolmistress broke
into a pleasant laugh that had once been musical.

"And Miss Tryphosa, did I understand you to say you apprehend anything
in her quarter from the Pilgrims?" enquired Coristine.

"Please say Tryphosa, sir; I do not think that young girls in service
should be miss'd."

"But they are very much missed when they go away and get married; don't
grudge me my little joke, Mrs. Hill."

"I would not grudge you anything so poor," she replied, shaking a
forefinger at the blushing lawyer. "You are right in supposing I
apprehend danger to Tryphosa from the younger Pilgrim. She is--well,
something like what I was when I was young, and she is only a child yet,
though well grown. Then, this younger Pilgrim has neither money nor
farm; besides, I am told, that he has imbibed infidel notions, and has
lately become the inmate of a disreputable country tavern. If you had a
daughter, sir, would you not tremble to think of her linking her lot
with so worthless a character?" Before the lawyer could reply, the old
man called back: "Mother, I think you had better give the gentleman a
rest; he must be tired of hearing your tongue go like a cow-bell in fly
time." Coristine protested, but his companion declined to continue the
conversation.

"The mistress is as proud of wagging that old tongue of hers," remarked
the dominie's companion, "as if she had half the larnin' of the country,
and she no more nor a third class county certificut."

"Many excellent teachers have begun on them," remarked Wilkinson.

"But she begun and ended there; the next certificut she got was a
marriage one, and, in a few years, she had a class in her own house to
tache and slipper."

"Your wife seems to be a very superior woman, Mr. Hill."

"That's where the shoe pinches me. Shuparior! it's that she thinks
herself, and looks down on my book larnin' that's as good as her own.
But, I'll tell ye, sir, I've read Shakespeare and she hasn't, not a
word."

"How is that?"

"Her folks were a sort of Lutherian Dutch they call Brethren. They're
powerful strict, and think it a mortal sin to touch a card or read a
play. My own folks were what they called black-mouthed Prosbytarians,
from the north of Ireland, but aijewcation made me liberal-minded. It
never had that effect on the mistress, although her own taycher was a