A Little Girl in Old Boston

To you, who have been a little girl in later Boston, I inscribe this story of another little girl who lived almost a hundred years ago, and found life busy and pleasant and full of affection, as I hope it will prove to you.
Amanda M. Douglas. Newark, N. J., 1898.
I do suppose she is a Papist! The French generally are, said Aunt Priscilla, drawing her brows in a delicate sort of frown, and sipping her tea with a spoon that had the London crown mark, and had been buried early in revolutionary times.
Why, there were all the Huguenots who emigrated from France for the sake of worshiping God in their own way rather than that of the Pope. We Puritans did not take all the free-will, declared Betty spiritedly.
You are too flippant, Betty, returned Aunt Priscilla severely. And I doubt if her father's people had much experimental religion. Then, she has been living in a very hot-bed of superstition!
The cold, dreary Lincolnshire coast! I think it would take a good deal of zeal to warm me, even if it was superstition.
And she was in a convent after her mother died! Yes, she is pretty sure to be a Papist. It seems rather queer that second-cousin Charles should have remembered her in his will.
But Charles was his namesake and nephew, the child of his favorite sister, interposed Mrs. Leverett, glancing deprecatingly at Betty, pleading with the most beseeching eyes that she should not ruffle Aunt Priscilla up the wrong way.
But what is that old ma'shland good for, anyway? asked Aunt Priscilla.
Why they are filling in and building docks, said Betty the irrepressible. Father thinks by the time she is grown it will be a handsome fortune.
Aunt Priscilla gave a queer sound that was not a sniff, but had a downward tendency, as if it was formed of inharmonious consonants. It expressed both doubt and disapproval.