"This is Miss Rhoda—Mr. Milburn's niece."
Judge Custis, a trifle blushing, took both of Rhoda's hands:
"Ha, my pretty partner and dancing pupil! How are our friends at St. Martin's Bay and Sinepuxent? Many a sail and clam-bake we have had, Rhoda."
"You're a deceiver," Rhoda cried, with a dimpling somewhere between glee and accusation. "I'm goin' to plosecute you, Jedge, fur not tellin' of me you was a married man. My heart's bruke."
"Who could remember what he was, Rhoda, sitting all that evening beside you at—where was it?"
"The Blohemian glass-blowers," Rhoda cried; "the only ones that ever visited the Western Himisfure. Jedge," with sudden impetuosity, "that little one, with the copper rings in his years, wasn't a Blohemian at all. He lived up at Cape Hinlupen, an' Misc Somers see him thar when she was a buyin' of herring thar. She's goin' to tell him, when she catches him at Nu-ark."
The young rector observed the flash of those bright eyes following the pleasing dimples, and the slips of orthography seemed to him never less culpable coming from such lips and teeth.
"William," said Vesta, "come around this afternoon, and let us have our usual Sunday reading-circle. Mr. Milburn will be awake and appreciate it, as he is one of your most regular parishioners. Rhoda, you can read?"
"Oh, yes'm. Misc Somers, she's a good reader. She reads the Old Testamins. The names thar is mos' too long for me, but I reads the Psalms an' the Ploverbs right well."
"Very well, then, we will read verse about, so that Mr. Milburn can hear both our voices and his favorite minister's, too. You'll come, papa?"