This was said so exactly with the voice and manner of a famous preacher of our Meeting that even I, a lad then of only eight years, recognised the imitation. Indeed, she was wonderful at this trick of mimicry, a thing most odious to Friends. As I smiled, hearing her, I was aware of my father in the open doorway of the sitting-room, tall, strong, with much iron-gray hair. Within I saw several Friends, large rosy men in drab, with horn buttons and straight collars, their stout legs clad in dark silk hose, without the paste or silver buckles then in use. All wore broad-brimmed, low beavers, and their gold-headed canes rested between their knees. My father said to me, in his sharp way, “Take thy noise out into the orchard. The child disturbs us, wife. Thou shouldst know better. A committee of overseers is with me.” He disliked the name Marie, and was never heard to use it, nor even its English equivalent. Upon this the dear lady murmured, “Let us fly, Hugh,” and she ran on tiptoe along the hall with me, while my father closed the door. “Come,” she added, “and see the floor. I am proud of it. We have friends to eat dinner with us at two.” The great room where we took our meals is still clear in my mind. The floor was two inches deep in white sand, in which were carefully traced zigzag lines, with odd patterns in the corners. A bare table of well-rubbed mahogany stood in the middle, with a thin board or two laid on the sand, that the table might be set without disturbing the patterns, In the corners were glass-covered buffets, full of silver and Delft ware; and a punch-bowl of Chelsea was on the broad window-ledge, with a silver-mounted cocoanut ladle. “The floor is pretty,” she said, regarding it with pride, “and I would make flowers too, but that thy father thinks it vain, and Friend Pemberton would set his bridge spectacles on his nose, and look at me, until I said naughty words, oh, very! Come out; I will find thee some ripe damsons, and save thee cake for thy supper, if Friend Warder does not eat it all. He is a little man, and eats much. A solicitous man,” and she became of a sudden the person she had in mind, looking somehow feeble and cautious and uneasy, with arms at length, and the palms turned forward, so that I knew it for Joseph Warder, a frequent caller, of whom more hereafter. “What is so--solicitous?” I said. “Oh, too fearful concerning what may be thought of him. Vanity, vanity! Come, let us run down the garden. Canst thou catch me, Hugh!” And with this she fled away, under the back stoop and through the trees, light and active, her curls tumbling out, while I hurried after her, mindful of damsons, and wondering how much cake Friend Warder would leave for my comfort at evening. Dear, ever dear lady, seen through the mist of years! None was like you, and none as dear, save one who had as brave a soul, but far other ways and charms.