Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 2.djvu/221

Rh that fence had been painted green we should get to heaven sooner," or "Before I had fits my memory was as good as anybody's, but my daughter married a clergyman, and took it with her."

The third antiquity was the hostess, a buxom lady, much given to gay attire and reminiscences of past glory, "Before me 'usband went into public life." The strangers innocently supposed the departed Mr. K. to have been an M.P. at least, and were rather taken aback on learning that he had been a pawnbroker.

The Egyptian youths were handsome, dark lads, with melodious voices, lustrous eyes, and such fiery tempers that one never knew whether they were going to pass the bread or stab one with the carving-knife.

As a slight mitigation of this slow society, the Russian from Pension Paradis appeared with his broadcloth more resplendent than ever. The ladies had seen him in Rome; but the fever scared him away, and he was now fleeing from another lodging house, where the hostess evidently intended to marry him to her daughter, in the MacStinger fashion.

In this varied circle did the devoted being