“Those two sons of Squance’s,” continued George, “never had an atom of education but what they picked up in winter from Howell Crusoe; and he said that endeavouring to teach them was like trying to fetch water out of an empty well. I once went to the house about some sheep of his that had got out of his fields—for the fences were full of wide gaps—and were in a furzy hollow, called the Dales, and were sticking fast by their fleeces to the furze and briars. You should have seen the place! There sat old Squance, just as you now saw him, filthy in the extreme; his face did not appear to have had any acquaintance with water for years; his grizzly beard was coarsely clipped with scissors, and looked like a rough stubble. The house was half filled with faggots, and he sat on a bench on one side with a billhook cutting them into fire-wood. His wife, not much cleaner or decenter, was cooking at the wide black fire-place; and the walls were all round black with smoke, stained with grease, and completely covered with smoked hams and flitches of bacon. The ceiling was partly occupied with the like, and with paper bags of seeds, and bunches of herbs, camomile, horehound, sage, and mint, hanging from it.” “But remember, George,” said Letty, with much merriment, “remember what a funeral they made for that silly brother, who used to talk of going such an odd way to America.” “Oh, to be sure,” said George. “The coffin was put into the great waggon, and the old man, his wife, and the two sons, sat round it. They had managed to display black for mourning, but it is believed to have been hired at a pawnbroker’s, for it has never been seen since. The waggon was drawn by six great farm-horses, with all their bells on their collars ringing and jingling as they went.” “How _can_ people,” said Letty, wonderingly, “grow so stupid about their money—what good is it to them!” “None,” said Thorsby, “no more than so many oyster-shells; but, Miss Letty, it is of no use your trying to comprehend such people. Their ideas are as unintelligible to you as you are to them. If they were allowed to try a reforming hand on you, they would sell your laces and your clothes, put you into linsey-woolsey, and set you to feed the pigs. Then they would think you useful; now they think you, certainly, a very useless and expensive sort of creature.” “Oh! I am glad they have not the opportunity for such a metamorphosis,” said Letty, laughing.