"Well, to be sure! My man wouldn't let me come no sooner--'tis his fault, not mine. But I did want to know which of them lads o' ours told his tale the Tightest. Here's Seth will have it you've had a thousand left you by the year, and Ben he saith young Master Floriszoon's to be a lord." "Dear! I hope not," said Hans. "Well! but they're a-saying so much all up and down the King's Street, I can tell you." "How could it have crept forth?" said Edith. "Then 'tis true? Eh, but I'm as glad as if I'd had forty shillings left me,--I am, so!" cried Mrs Abbott; and she was sincere, for a fresh subject for conversation was worth quite that to her. "And is it true, as our Seth said, that you've a fine house and a park in Northamptonshire come to you, and fifteen hundred head o' red deer and a lake to fish in?" "Quite true," said Robert Lewthwaite, with a grave bow, "allowing, my mistress, of four corrections: there is not a park, it is not in Northamptonshire, there be no red deer, and the lake 'longeth not to the house." "And jewels worth ever so many thousands, as our Ben saith, for Mistress Lettice, and ten Barbary horses o' th' best, and a caroche fine enough for the King's Majesty?" "Ah, I would that last were true," said Edith. "My mistress, the Barbary horses be all there saving ten, and the caroche is a-building in the air: as to the jewels, seeing they be Mistress Lettice's, I leave her to reply." Lettice was in no condition to do it, for she was suffering torments from suppressed laughter. Her Uncle Robert's preternatural gravity, and Mrs Abbott's total incapacity to see the fun, were barely endurable. "Eh, but you will be mortal fine!" said Mrs Abbott, turning her artillery on the afflicted Lettice. "I only wish our Mall had such a chance. If she--" "Mrs Abbott, I cry you mercy, but here comes your Caleb," said Hans calmly. "I reckon he shall be after you." "I reckon he shall, the caitiff! That man o' mine, he's for ever and the day after a-sending the childer after me." "I rejoice to hear you have so loving an husband," Mr Lewthwaite was sufficiently inconsiderate to respond. "Eh, bless you, there's no love about it. Just like them men! they'd shut a woman's mouth up as tight as a fish, and never give her no leave to speak a word, if they had their way. But I'm not one of your meek bag-puddings, that'll take any shape you pinch 'em,--not I, forsooth; and he knows it. I'll have my say, soon or late, and Prissy, she's a downright chatterbox. Not that I'm that, you know--not a bit of it: but Prissy, she is; and I can tell you, when Prissy and Dorcas and Ben they're all at it, the house isn't over quiet, for none on 'em hearkens what t'others are saying, and their father whacks 'em by times--ay, he doth! Now, Caleb, what's to do?" "Nothing particular, Mother," said slow, deliberate Caleb through the open window: "only there's yon pedlar with the mercery, and he willn't tarry only ten minutes more--"