“What are you reading, Miss Martha?” he asked, after a long and somewhat awkward pause.
She handed him the book in reply.
“Ah! Hannah More,—a friend of yours? Is she one of the West-Whiteland Moores?”
Martha could not suppress a light, amused laugh, as she answered: “Oh, no, she is an English woman.”
“Then it's a Tory book,” said he, handing it back; “I wouldn't read it, if I was you.”
“It is a story, and I should think you might.”
He heard other words than those she spoke. “As Tory as—what?” he asked himself. “As I am,” of course; that is what she means. “Old-man Barton” had been one of the disloyal purveyors for the British army during its occupancy of Philadelphia in the winter of 1777-8, and though the main facts of the traffic wherefrom he had drawn immense profits, never could be proved against him, the general belief hung over the family, and made a very disagreeable cloud. Whenever Alfred Barton quarrelled with any one, the taunt was sure to be flung into his teeth. That it came now, as he imagined, was as great a shock as if Martha had slapped him in the face with her own delicate hand, and his visage reddened from the blow.
Miss Betsy Lavender, bending laboriously over the Psalms, nevertheless kept her dull gray eyes in movement. She saw the misconception, and fearing that Martha did not, made haste to remark:—
“Well, Mr. Alfred, and do you think it's a harm to read a story? Why, Miss Ann herself lent me 'Alonzo and Melissa,' and 'Midnight Horrors,' and I'll be bound you've read 'em yourself on the sly. 'T a'n't much other readin' men does, save and except the weekly paper, and law enough to git a tight hold on their debtors. Come, now, let's know what you do read?”
“Not much of anything, that's a fact,” he answered, recovering himself, with a shudder at the fearful mistake he had been on the point of making, “but I've nothing against women reading stories. I was rather thinking of myself when I spoke to you, Miss Martha.”