talk _so_, Priscy," said Nancy, blushing. "You know I don't
mean ever to be married."

"Oh, you never mean a fiddlestick's end!" said Priscilla, as she
arranged her discarded dress, and closed her bandbox. "Who shall _I_
have to work for when father's gone, if you are to go and take notions
in your head and be an old maid, because some folks are no better than
they should be? I haven't a bit o' patience with you--sitting on an
addled egg for ever, as if there was never a fresh un in the world.
One old maid's enough out o' two sisters; and I shall do credit to a
single life, for God A'mighty meant me for it. Come, we can go down
now. I'm as ready as a mawkin _can_ be--there's nothing awanting to
frighten the crows, now I've got my ear-droppers in."

As the two Miss Lammeters walked into the large parlour together, any
one who did not know the character of both might certainly have
supposed that the reason why the square-shouldered, clumsy,
high-featured Priscilla wore a dress the facsimile of her pretty
sister's, was either the mistaken vanity of the one, or the malicious
contrivance of the other in order to set off her own rare beauty. But
the good-natured self-forgetful cheeriness and common-sense of
Priscilla would soon have dissipated the one suspicion; and the modest
calm of Nancy's speech and manners told clearly of a mind free from all
disavowed devices.

Places of honour had been kept for the Miss Lammeters near the head of
the principal tea-table in the wainscoted parlour, now looking fresh
and pleasant with handsome branches of holly, yew, and laurel, from the
abundant growths of the old garden; and Nancy felt an inward flutter,
that no firmness of purpose could prevent, when she saw Mr. Godfrey
Cass advancing to lead her to a seat between himself and Mr.
Crackenthorp, while Priscilla was called to the opposite side between
her father and the Squire. It certainly did make some difference to
Nancy that the lover she had given up was the young man of quite the
highest consequence in the parish--at home in a venerable and unique
parlour, which was the extremity of grandeur in her experience, a
parlour where _she_ might one day have been mistress, with the
consciousness that she was spoken of as "Madam Cass", the Squire's
wife. These circumstances exalted her inward drama in her own eyes,
and deepened the emphasis with which she declared to herself that not
the most dazzling rank should induce her to ma