us in the Old
Doctor's House."

The speaker was May, between sixteen and seventeen. She was the tallest
of the four sisters--let them call her "Little May" as long as they
liked. She had so far forgotten herself as to follow Rose's lead.

"Hold your tongues, you two monkeys; what should you know about it?"
Annie, who had a tendency to sit upon her younger sisters, tried to
silence them. She had reached the advanced age of twenty-two, and by
virtue of being the eldest, had been considered grown up for the last
four years, when Rose and May were chits of fourteen and a little over
twelve. Of course this gave Annie a vast advantage in womanly dignity
and knowledge of the world. But at the present moment she was herself so
interested in the discussion that she could not make up her mind to drop
it till Rose and May were out of the way.

"I must say"--Annie started the subject again--"that I think it great
presumption in Tom Robinson, though he is not so ugly as that comes to,
and he's really well enough bred in spite of 'Robinson's.'"

"He is a college-bred man." Dora ventured shyly to put in a word for the
dignity of her suitor, and for her own dignity as so far involved in
his. "And so were his father and grandfather before him, father says."

"But the Robinsons had the silk-mill and the woollen-factory then as
well as the big shop," corrected Annie. "And Tom might have gone into
the Church or into some other profession if he had chosen, when things
might have been a little different. Still, if you are pleased, Dora,"
with a peal of derisive laughter, "if you do not object to the--shop."

"Of course I object," cried Dora, tingling with mortification and shame.
"That is, I should object to his having a shop, if I had ever thought of
him for a single moment in that light. I cannot imagine what put me into
his head--in that sense. Indeed I cannot believe it yet. I am sure it is
just some nonsense on the part of the rest of you to tease me."

"No, no," Annie hastened to contradict her. "It is sober reality. He has
said something to father; you know he has, mother owned it."

"He has been meeting us and throwing himself in our way everywhere,"
broke in the irrepressible Rose and May.

"He has been coming and coming here," resumed Annie, "where, as we
don't happen to have a brother, there is not even another young man to
form an excuse for his coming. We cannot so much as pretend, when
people remark on his visits, tha