Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/286

 what good friends the two were. Mrs. Spencer could forgive her husband for falling into an occasional rage with the other children, because he seldom molested her "fire-brand" Dick; and as for Dick he might "blow out" at her with impunity, so long as he did not rouse the lion which slumbered in the bosom of her chosen lord. She would often watch them as they strolled down the garden path together, thinking the while of Topsy and Jericho and of her early alarms, and she would say to herself with a deep sigh of content, "It has really been a great deliverance."

A sensible woman was Mrs. Richard Spencer, and her husband only hoped that his sons might have his luck when their courting days came round.

The courting days were nearer at hand than Mr. Richard Spencer suspected. Perhaps he had forgotten that he began his own courting at the early age of twenty. Such a lapse of memory could alone account for his not attaching more significance than he did to a little incident which occurred one pleasant June morning when Dick was barely turned twenty-one. The family were assembled at the breakfast-table, grace had been said, and as Mr. Spencer lifted his eyes he beheld an unusual sight. The dining-room windows looked out upon the gravel space in front of the barn. Although it was at some distance from the house, the view was unobstructed, and a top-buggy which had been backed out from the car-