"Not altogether—I am here just now, as you see,—getting a part of my education. I am one of the Say and Seal people in a way. Won't you come in, Mr. Simlins?"
"Well—I'd as lief see Faith and Mrs. Derrick as a'most any other two folks in Pattaquasset,—but they're a long ways off, you say?"
"No further than the parlour, I believe."
Mr. Simlins was willing to go as far as the parlour, and so the party on the porch adjourned thither. A bright lamp lit the room, by which Faith was mending stockings; while Mrs. Derrick sat in an easy chair a little further off, rocking and knitting.
"Well," said Mr. Simlins, "when the sun goes down I think it is time to knock off work; but womenkind don't seem to think so."
"I guess when the sun goes down your work's knocked off, Mr. Simlins," said Mrs. Derrick.
"Fact, Mrs. Derrick, when I'm to home; but when a man's visiting he has to work night and day. Moonlight's moonlight now. I declare, in Jersey I thought it was broad sunshine.—You haven't been down to my place yet, Mr. Linden?"
"No sir, not within the gate."
"The Simlins' have held that place, sir, off and on, for nigh three hundred years. We're a good many Simlins'—and we're a good set, I'll say it! a pretty good set. Not thin-skinned, you know,—we can take a scratch without bein' killed—but we never would stand bein' trampled on. We're soft-hearted too; plenty o' what I may call tendrils, ready to take hold of anything; and when we take hold we do take hold. We cover a good deal of ground in the country, here and elsewhere—in the various branches. My mother was a Mush, and my grandmother was a Citron; a good families those, sir; can't do better than take a wife from one of them, Mr. Linden, if you are so disposed;—you haven't got one already, have you?"
"What, sir?" said Mr. Linden, with more sharpness than he often shewed, and which made Mrs. Derrick drop her knitting and look up.