26 COUSIN PHILLIS.
hit the enduring epithets, nearly two thousand years ago, and in Italy; and yet how it describes to a T what is now lying hefore us in the parish of Heathhridge, county ---, England."
"I dare say it does," said I, all aglow with shame, for I had forgotten the little Latin I ever knew.
The minister shifted his eyes to Phillis's face; it mutely gave him back the sympathetic appreciation that I, in my ignorance, could not bestow.
"Oh! this is worse than the catechism," thought I; "that was only remembering words."
"Phillis, lass, thou must go home with these lads, and tell their mother all about the race and the milk. Mammy must always know the truth," now speaking to the children. "And tell her, too, from me that I have got the best birch rod in the parish; and that if she ever thinks her children want a flogging she must bring them to me, and, if I think they deserve it, I'll give it them better than she can." So Phillis led the children towards the dairy, somewhere in the back yard, and I followed the minister in through the "curate" into the house-place.
"Their mother," said he, "is a bit of a vixen, and apt to punish her children without rhyme or reason. I try to keep the parish rod as well as the parish bull."
He sate down in the three-cornered chair by the fire-side, and looked around the empty room.
"Where's the missus?" said he to himself. But she was there in a minute; it was her regular plan to give him his welcome home — by a look, by a touch, nothing more — as soon as she could after his return, and he had missed her now. Regardless of my presence, he went
