“Is not she, uncle?” cried I, leaving my fox in the corner. “Oh, if you could hear her tell the tale of King Arthur and the Enchanted Lake, or the Grim White Woman!”
“I have already heard her tell both,” said my uncle.
“The deuce you have, brother! My dear, we must look to this. These captains are dangerous gentlemen in an orderly household. Pray, where could you have had the opportunity of such private communications with Mrs. Primmins?”
“Once,” said my uncle, readily, “when I went into her room, while she mended my stock; and once—” He stopped short, and looked down.
“Once when? Out with it.”
“When she was warming my bed,” said my uncle, in a half-whisper.
“Dear!” said my mother, innocently, “that’s how the sheets came by that bad hole in the middle. I thought it was the warming-pan.”
“I am quite shocked!” faltered my uncle.
“You well may be,” said my father. “A woman who has been heretofore above all suspicion! But come,” he said, seeing that my uncle looked sad, and was no doubt casting up the probable price of twice six yards of holland, “but come, you were always a famous rhapsodist or tale-teller yourself. Come, Roland, let us have some story of your own,—something which your experience has left strong in your impressions.”
“Let us first have the candles,” said my mother.