was being said by some men who were
telling stories of her (which was no wrong because we wished to learn a
lesson so that we might not behave like her). Some of their words we
did not understand, but some we did and 'twas of a Chaplain (they
called him a fat-chopped hipercrit) who went to counsel her to behayve
more decent, and she no doubt was impudent and tried to pleas him, for
he forgot his cloth and put his arms sudden about her and kist her. And
the men roared shameful, for the one who told it said she knocked him
down on his knees and held him there with one hand on his shoulder
while she boxed his face from side to side till his nose bled in
streams, and cried she (Oh, Tom!) 'Damn thy fat head,' each time she
struck him 'if that is thy way to convert women, this is my way to
convert men.' And he could scarce crawl away weeping, his blood and
tears streeming down his face, which shows she hath not a reverence
even for the cloth itself. Dere brother Thomas, if you should meet her
in England when you come back from the wars, and she is a woman, I do
pray you will not be like the other gentlemen and be so silly as to
praise her, for such creatures should not be encorragd."

Throughout the reading of the letter uproarious shouts of laughter had
burst forth at almost every sentence, and when he had finished the
epistle, little Tantillion fell forward, his face on his arms on the
table, his mirth almost choking him, while the others leaned back and
roared. 'Twas only Roxholm who was not overcome, the story not seeming
so comical to him as to the others, and yet there were points at which
he himself could not help but laugh.

"'Damn thy fat head,'" shrieked Tom Tantillion, "'If that is thy way to
convert women, this is mine to convert men.' Oh, Lord! I think I see
the parson!"

"With his fat, slapped face and his streaming eyes and bloody nose!"
shouted Langford.

"Serve him damn right!" said Tantillion, sobering and wiping his own
eyes. "To put their heads into such hornets' nests would make a lot of
them behave more decent." And then he picked up the letter again and
made brotherly comments upon it.

"'Tis just like a minx of a girl to think a man cannot see through her
spite," he said. "Bet is dying to be a woman and have the fellows
ogling her. She is a pretty chit and will be the languishing kind, like
the die-away Maddon who is so 'modist.' She is thin enough to be made
'modist' by it. No breeches for her,