A great variety in this little circle was furnished by the Friends’ family of the Heritages. It was not the custom of these worthy Friends to give festive parties, nor did they frequent those of their neighbours, if there was to be much worldly amusement, especially of dancing, cards, or the like. They preferred to make familiar calls during the day, on which occasions they were always extremely friendly, and as pleasantly cheerful as any people in the world, but always with a certain substratum of gravity and soberness. These visits were generally made by Mrs. Heritage and her daughter Millicent. The mother was sure to ask about what she saw going on in farming household affairs. In winter she was very much interested in Betty Trapps’s spinning-wheel, which, when she had nothing else very pressing, was sure to be humming away in the warm, clean house-place, as it was called, a sort of intermediate room between the kitchen and the parlour, where the farm-men and the servants took their meals, and where Mr. Woodburn furnished them with suitable books for their evening’s reading in winter, but where the men generally stretched their legs before the blazing fire, and dropped asleep, and then stole off to bed. Betty Trapps greatly amused the Heritage ladies, mother and daughter, with her country shrewdness and plain-spokenness. “Dost thou manage to get good tow?” asked Mrs. Heritage, one day. “Oh, yes,” Betty said, “as good as I expect.” “Dost thou not expect it to be good, then?” asked Mrs. Heritage. “Yes, _I_ expect it,” said Betty, “because I look pretty sharp after it. They wunna readily find a norp[1] in me.” “Surely,” said Mrs. Heritage, “there cannot be much cheating in tow?” “There are tricks in all trades,” said Betty, dryly, “and there are tricks in tow. I get mine from Widow Pechell, in Hillmartin, and as I scrutinised it pretty closely when I first went to her shop, says Mrs. Pechell, ‘Ay, thou may look, lass, but nobody is ever deceived in _my_ tow, for they awlis expect a bit of bad in the middle, and they are sure to find it there.’” “That was candid,” said Miss Millicent Heritage, laughing gently. “But didst thou find some bad in the middle?” asked Mrs. Heritage. “Yes, sure enough I did,” said Betty; “but I just took it out of the rock, and laid it on the counter, and said, ‘Now, weigh it, missis,’ and since then I never find any bad in the middle, because Mother Pechell knows it’s just no use. She may try that on with norps.” “Well,” said Mrs. Heritage, rising, “when I want to buy tow, Betty, I will get thee to do it for me.” Betty turned her wheel more briskly at this compliment to her sagacity, and added, “You might do worse, Mrs. Heritage; and yet I think Sukey Priddo can help you in such bargains quite as well.” Sukey Priddo was Mrs. Heritage’s housekeeper, and a sister Methodist of Betty’s.