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"The Cromptons is all that way of thinkin'. Old Colonel is a vestedman, I b'lieve they call 'em, but he swears offul. I don't call that religion; do you? But folks ain't alike. I don't s'pose the Church is to blame. There's now and then as good a 'Piscopal as you'll find anywhere. Ruby Ann has jined 'em, and goes it strong.
He did not mean to reflect upon her mother's family, but Eloise's face was very red as she said, "The Harrises and Browns are not people to be proud of, I know, but they were as honest, perhaps, as the Cromptons, and they are mine, and if they all came here to-night I would not disown them."
Here, Tim," she called, as she heard him whistling in the woodshed, "run to Miller's and git a carriage and a span, quick as you can, a good one, too," she added, as the possibility grew upon her that Eloise might belong to the Cromptons, and if so, ought to go up in style.
This brought her back to the Cromptons generally, and during the next half hour Eloise had a pretty graphic description of the Colonel and his eccentricities, of Amy, when she was a young girl, of the way she came to the Crompton House, and the mystery which still surrounded her birth.
I never knew my grandfather Cocker, but have heard that he was a lively and vigorous man, who enjoyed life very heartily in his way. He married a Miss Crompton, who had a little property and was descended from the De Cromptons of Crompton Hall.
There have been three or four different teachers in District No. 5, all normal graduates, and all during their term of office boarding with Mrs. Biggs, who is never tired of boasting of her intimacy with the Cromptons, and Eloise in particular. Every detail of the accident is repeated again and again, with many incidents of Amy's girlhood.
There could be no doubt, as she was seen now, that she was the most attractive female on board the ship; but it may be doubted whether the anger of the Mrs. Cromptons, Mrs. Callanders, and Miss Greens was mitigated by the change.
He was young to be a colonel, but the title was merely nominal and complimentary, and not given for any service to his country. When only twenty-one he had joined a company of militia young bloods like himself who drilled for exercise and pleasure rather than from any idea that they would ever be called into service. He was at first captain, then he rose to the rank of colonel, and when the company disbanded he kept the title, and was rather proud of it, as he was of everything pertaining to himself and the Cromptons generally. It was an old English family, tracing its ancestry back to the days of William the Conqueror, and boasting of two or three titles and a coat-of-arms. The American branch was not very prolific, and so far as he knew, the Colonel was the only remaining Crompton of that line in this country, except the son of a half-brother. This brother, who was now dead, had married against his father's wishes, and been cut off from the Crompton property, which, at the old man's death, all came to the Colonel. It was a fine estate, with a very grand house for the New England town by the sea in which it was situated. It was built by the elder Crompton, who was born in England, and had carried out his foreign ideas of architecture, and with its turrets and square towers it bore some resemblance to the handsome places he had seen at home. It was of stone, and stood upon a rise of ground, commanding a view of the sea two miles away, and the pretty village on the shore with a background of wooded hills stretching to the west. It was full of pictures and bric-
She and a woman from York State," Peter replied, and the Colonel continued, "Well, I s'pose those things will have to go to the sale, if Mrs. Amy says so, but I won't have them mixed with the quill wheels and boot-jacks and Widow Biggs's foot-stove and brass kettle, and I won't have a pack of idiots looking them over and buying them and saying they belonged to the Cromptons.
Smith had communicated to him the fact that she utterly despised those Cromptons, who were distant cousins of her late husband's, and with whom she had come on board; how she preferred to be alone to having aught to do with them; how she had one or two books with her, and passed some hours in reading; and how she was poor, very poor, but still had something on which to live for a few weeks after landing.
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