“Oh! she denied it,” said Letty. “She said she only ‘crooned to hersel’’ a little, as Burns says; but I caught some sweet tones coming out of that quarter every now and then. She has a charming voice; _that_ I discovered; and I believe she knows more about singing than she wants to be known. I can tell you one thing—she is a very sweet poetess. I am promised a delicious little poem of hers some day, that she repeated to me. These Quaker girls, do you know, learn off lots of poetry, and the funniest of all—_such_ poetry!—Moore’s, and Byron’s, and Burns’s—of all things. They have a poet at Birmingham; only think, at Birmingham!” “A gunsmith, of course,” said Mr. Woodburn, satirically, “as they hate war.” “No, a banker. What is his name? Moon—Moon——? something about the moon.” “Obadiah Moonshine, I daresay,” said George. “Now, don’t, George, drive the name out of my head,” said Letty. “Oh! there it is—Paul Moon James. Millicent repeated to me some verses called ‘The Beacon.’ I did not think them half so good as her own. But the Friends think much of them.” “They are a very extraordinary people,” said George. “I found those two queer drab servants, Sylvanus Crook and William Theobald, exactly alike, only one in little and the other in large. They were sitting, and, of all things, discussing Swedenborgianism. I learnt that this Theobald, besides being a Quaker, is a Swedenborgian preacher, but he takes his Quaker notions with him into the pulpit. Instead of taking his text, Thorsby tells us, he says, ‘Here goes for the starting-place.’ “There was a young, rather conceited fellow, not eighteen, I should say, trying to make a little fun out of this old man. “‘Now, William,’ he said, ‘does Swedenborg tell you what the soul is?’ “‘Yes,’ said the old man; ‘it is the real man. This body is but its covering, just as my coat is the covering of the body.’ “‘Do you expect then to rise, William, just as you are—asthma, and all?’ The poor man is often afflicted with asthma. “‘No,’ said he, ‘there will be delightful breathing on the heavenly plains.’ “‘But I can’t tell how all these things are to be,’ said the young, conceited fellow. “‘How shouldst thou?’ said the old man, taking off his cocked hat. ‘Put me the sky into my hat, Edward.’ “‘Ay, truly,’ said the lad, ‘that would be a feat.’ “‘Then fetch me all the water of the pond there in this tumbler,’ offering the pert youth a tumbler on a little hand-tray, in which he had been taking water to some one. “‘Well, it just wouldn’t go in,’ said the youth, laughing. “‘How should it?’ said the old Friend. ‘The sky is there, and the water is there, and the love of God to his creatures is everywhere, but they can none of them get into thy little measures, nor into thy little head, because these are too little for them. The things are there, but the capacity to receive them is wanting in them, and in thee, young man.’” “That was a very fine answer,” said Ann. “I like that very much.”