"I suppose Mr. Howel gets shaved sometimes," said the logical Jenny.
"Not he; or if he does, no decent man would think of posting himself before a lady's window to do such a thing.--Orlando Furioso," calling to her eldest son, a boy of eleven, "run over to Mr. Jones's store, and listen to what the people are talking about, and bring me back the news, as soon as any thing worth hearing drops from any body; and stop as you come back, my son, and borrow neighbour Brown's gridiron. Jenny, it is most time to think of putting over the potatoes."
"Ma'--" cried Orlando Furioso, from the front door, Mrs. Abbott being very rigid in requiring that all her children should call her 'ma',' being so much behind the age as actually not to know that 'mother' had got to be much the genteeler term of the two; "Ma'," roared Orlando Furioso, "suppose there is no news at Mr. Jones's store?"
"Then go to the nearest tavern; something must be stirring this fine morning, and I'm dying to know what it can possibly be. Mind you bring something besides the gridiron back with you. Hurry, or never come home again as long as you live! As I was saying, Jenny, the right of the public, which is our right, for we are a part of the public, to this Point, is as clear as day, and I am only astonished at the impudence of Mr. Effingham in pretending to deny it. I dare say his French daughter has put him up to it. They say she is monstrous arrogant!"
"Is Eve Effingham, French," said Jenny, studiously avoiding any of the usual terms of civility and propriety, by way of showing her breeding--"well, I had always thought her nothing but Templeton born!"
"What signifies where a person was born? where they live, is the essential thing; and Eve Effingham has lived so long in France, that she speaks nothing but broken English; and Miss Debby told me last week, that in drawing up a subscription paper for a new cushion to the reading-desk of her people, she actually spelt 'charity' 'carrotty.'"
"Is that French, Miss Abbott?"
"I rather think it is, Jenny; the French are very niggardly, and give their poor carrots to live on, and so they have adopted the word, I suppose. You, Byansy-Alzumy-Ann, (Bianca-Alzuma-Ann!)"
"Marm!"
"Byansy-Alzumy-Ann! who taught you to call me marm! Is this the way you have learned your catechism? Say, ma', this instant."