"Well, I never sot eout to do a thing yit that I didn't do it, and I'm going to do that."
"Hurrah! Aunt Pilcher," I shouted, "I would too, if I were you." And that confirmed her in her engagement, [{669}] for the very next morning she put on her bonnet and shawl, and hung her reticule on her arm, without which she never went out of doors, and off she started. She was gone all day and did not return until tea-time, appearing completely fagged out and exhausted. She was not in the best of humors either, to judge of the way she pulled off her out-door additions to her ordinary dress, and bade me "carry them things up-stairs, for people dead a'most and starved can't always be expected to wait on theirselves." But not a word did she say about the object of her long day's journey. I was all curiosity to know where, she had been and what she had seen; and when we had nearly got through tea, that is, Uncle George, Aunt Jane, Aunt Pilcher, I, and Bub Thompson, who had come to play with me in the afternoon, and said he smelt short-cake, and wondered whether Aunt Jane could make it nice, and so got invited to try them—then I could stand it no longer, and said I, "See anything nice to-day, Aunt Pilcher?"
"I didn't particularly see anything, my dear, but I heered something I shan't forgit, I can tell you, if hearin' a thing a hundred and ninety-nine times over is enough to' make a body remember it."
"What did you hear, aunt?" asked everybody at once.
"Hear!" exclaimed she. "These Yorkers never knows anything if a body asks them a perlite question abeout who lives in any house, or which is the way to somewhere; but to-day I do think they was all possessed, for everybody 'peared to know only one church, when, dear knows, they ort to know their own churches, I should think, and not be a' directin' everybody everlastin'ly to St. Peter's."
"How was that, aunt?" asked every one again.
"Well," said she, "I told you what I was goin' eout for, and I went. Neow I always do things in order: commence at the beginnin', I say, and then ye'll know when ye git to the eend. So I went clean deown to the battery, and then I turns reound and comes up. Not wishin' to ask questions of people too fur off (for these Yorkers don't know where anythin' is ef it ain't right deown under their nose), I walked on till I got pretty near Trinity Church, belongin' to the Episcopals, and says I to a knowledgable lookin' man, says I, 'Couldn't ye pint me eout, neow, a Catholic church?' 'I can't precisely pint ye to it,' says he, which I thort was queer, with a Christian church right afore his eyes, 'but I can tell you where one is: in Barclay street, right up Broadway, ma'am, Saint Peter's church,' and off he went like a shot. These Yorkers air in sich a hurry, they won't stop to hear a body eout. Well, on I walks, and I saw another church, Saint Paul's in Broadway, similarly belongin' to the Episcopals; and this time I got straight in front of it. The folks 'peared to be in sich an orful hurry jist here that I thort somebody must be dead; or somebody's house had ketch't afire, and I couldn't git eout the first word afore the person I spoke to was a whole block off, and I got kind o' bewildered like. At last, I tried a lady—for I give the men folks up—and says I to her:
"'Is this a meetin'-house of the Holy Catholic Church, ma'am?'
"'No, ma'am,' says she rather short, 'ef you want to go there, you had better go deown Barclay street, next street above, St. Peter's on the left,' and off she went. Well; I goes deown Barclay street, jist to see this St. Peter's, and do you believe, I found eout it was one of them papist churches.'
"That was rather strange," interrupted Uncle George.