Now after our tea–drinking was done, my father and Mr. Webster settled down by the fireside to smoke their pipes and talk of town’s affairs and the ever pressing sufferings of the poor. Mr. Webster’s talk was heavy hearing. He knew every family on that hill–side, and scarce one was free from griping want. The parson’s voice would falter and tears come to his eyes as he told his tale, and I could see my father shift uneasily in his chair and his hand wander to his pocket, and my mother would break in with “Hear to him, now!” “The likes o’ that,” “God save us,” and so on. And presently she went into the outer kitchen where leavings of our feast were spread, and when Mr. Webster went home that night Josiah trudged by his side with a hamper of good things. Not, be sure, for Mr. Webster himself, for of his own needs, though these were rather suspected than known for sure, the good man spoke not at all; and I will go bail he proved a trusty steward of the comforts borne on ’Siah’s broad shoulders.
For us younger ones there was no lack of sport, Postman’s Knock and Forfeits and other games in which there is overmuch kissing to my present thinking though I did not think so then. And if, whenever the rules of the game did give me occasion, I chose Faith rather than Mary, had I not reason in that Faith was the greater stranger to our house, and I was ever taught to be civil to our guests. And I was no little nettled by the carryings on of Mary and George. In my heart I cried shame on Mary, and said to myself it was unseemly that a maiden of a respectable family should so set herself at any man. It was “George” here and “George” there, and “Cousin Mellor” and “Cousin Mary,” though what kinship of blood there was between them was so slight it was a manifest pretence and cloak to make so much of it. I do hate a forward girl, and it was not like our Mary to make herself so sheap. Why, but the week before, being moved thereto on seeing her more tantalizingly pretty than common, I had made to give her a cousinly salute, and she had smacked me smartly on the cheek and started away in a rare pet. But I took care this night she should see I could play the swain as well as any George among them, and Faith seemed nothing loth. Not that she was over–bold. When I would kiss her she would turn her cheek to me with a pretty readiness, and seemed in no wise to mind it; but when George could spare a thought for any but Mary, and choose Faith, the colour would crimson her cheeks and brow, and she would turn her face away, and then, lo! all her flush would fade and leave her pale and trembling.
But we were perhaps getting over old for such games not yet old enough for the whist to which our elders had betaken themselves. So Mary, after no little urging thereto, did seat herself at the spinnet, which was a new joy in our house and had been the occasion of some bitterness to our friends. And touching the keys softly thus she sang very roguishly:—
“Love was once a little boy,
Heigh ho! heigh ho!
Then with him ’twas sweet to toy
Heigh ho! heigh ho!
He was then so innocent,
Not as now on mischief bent;
Free he came; and harmless went,