“Yes, I do recollect that I did make a sort of promise, Frank, and I promise you now that some day I will fulfil it; but I am not sure that you will understand or profit by the history now, so much as you may by-and-bye.”
“Well, but mother, you can tell me the story twice, and I shall be glad to hear it again; so tell it to me now, to amuse me, and by-and-bye, that I may profit by it.”
My mother smiled, which she very seldom did, and said—
“Well, Frank, as I know you would at any time give up your dinner to listen to a story, and as you will have no dinner to-day, I think it is but fair that I should consent to your wish. Who shall I begin with—with my husband or with myself?”
“Pray begin with your own history,” replied I.
Chapter Twenty Nine.
“I am the daughter of a parish clerk in a small market-town near the southern coast of England, within a few miles of a large seaport.”
“What is a parish clerk?” I asked, interrupting my mother at the commencement of her promised narrative.