Tryphosa is only twenty,
and attends to the other duties of the house. Mrs. Carruthers is not
above helping in all the work herself, so that she knows how to treat
her maids properly. Still, I am anxious about them."
"Nothing wrong with their health, I hope?" asked the lawyer.
"No, sir; in a bodily way they enjoy excellent health."
"Pardon me, Mrs. Hill," interrupted Coristine, "for saying that your
perfectly correct expression calls up that of a friend of mine. Meeting
an old college professor, very stiff and precise in manner and language,
he had occasion to tell him that, as a student, he had enjoyed very poor
health. 'I do not know about the enjoying of it, sir,' he answered, 'but
I know your health was very poor.' Ha, ha! but I interrupted you."
"I was going to say, sir, that I have never been ambitious, save to keep
a good name and live a humbly useful life, with food convenient for me,
as Agur, the son of Jakeh, says in the Book of Proverbs, in which, I
suppose, he included clothing and shelter, but I did hope my girls would
look higher than the Pilgrims."
"You don't mean John Bunyan's Christian and Christiana, and Great Heart,
and the rest of them?"
"Oh, no!" replied the old lady, laughing, "mine are living characters,
quite unknown to the readers of books, Sylvanus and Timotheus, the sons
of old Saul Pilgrim.
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