"Tryphena is getting up, and—well, she takes after her father in looks, but will make any man a good wife. Then the elder Pilgrim has good morals, and is affectionate, soft I should be disposed to call him; and he has regular employment all the year round, though often away from home. He has money saved and in the bank, and has a hundred-acre farm in the back country somewhere. He says, if Tryphena refuses him, he will continue to risk his life among the perils of the deep, by which the silly fellow means Lake Simcoe." Here the quondam schoolmistress broke into a pleasant laugh that had once been musical.
"And Miss Tryphosa, did I understand you to say you apprehend anything in her quarter from the Pilgrims?" enquired Coristine.
"Please say Tryphosa, sir; I do not think that young girls in service should be miss'd."
"But they are very much missed when they go away and get married; don't grudge me my little joke, Mrs. Hill."
"I would not grudge you anything so poor," she replied, shaking a forefinger at the blushing lawyer. "You are right in supposing I apprehend danger to Tryphosa from the younger Pilgrim. She is—well, something like what I was when I was young, and she is only a child yet, though well grown. Then, this younger Pilgrim has neither money nor farm; besides, I am told, that he has imbibed infidel notions, and has lately become the inmate of a disreputable country tavern. If you had a daughter, sir, would you not tremble to think of her linking her lot with so worthless a character?" Before the lawyer could reply, the old man called back: "Mother, I think you had better give the gentleman a rest; he must be tired of hearing your tongue go like a cow-bell in fly time." Coristine protested, but his companion declined to continue the conversation.
"The mistress is as proud of wagging that old tongue of hers," remarked the dominie's companion, "as if she had half the larnin' of the country, and she no more nor a third class county certificut."
"Many excellent teachers have begun on them," remarked Wilkinson.
"But she begun and ended there; the next certificut she got was a marriage one, and, in a few years, she had a class in her own house to tache and slipper."
"Your wife seems to be a very superior woman, Mr. Hill."
"That's where the shoe pinches me. Shuparior! it's that she thinks herself, and looks down on my book larnin' that's as good as her own. But, I'll tell ye, sir, I've read Shakespeare and she hasn't, not a word."