"Pshaw! the old minister?" cried Chester. "How long is he going to stay?"
"I hope not a great while," said Sarah. "Anything but a minister—out of the pulpit."
"He'll just spoil my visit," rejoined her brother. "He has been here, hasn't he? I think I remember seeing him, when I was about so high," measuring off the door-post.
"He spent the night here, several years ago; but we don't know much about him, only by hearsay. He's a very good man, we are told," said Mrs. Royden, with a sigh; "but how we are going to have him in the family, I don't know."
Chester changed the topic of conversation by once inquiring for Hepsy. The girl did not make her appearance; and he expressed a desire to "see a basin of water and a hair-brush."
"You shall have the parlor bedroom," said Sarah.
"But if Mr. Rensford comes—" suggested her mother.
"O, he can go up-stairs."
"I won't hear to that!" cried Chester. "Give the old man the luxuries. I want to see the inside of my old room again."
"But Hepsy and the children have that room now."