Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. 1Y/TRS. JOHN BUTLER was a largely --- built, loose-jointed woman. Her head was long, especially from the nose downward, and the effect was heightened by all the hair not at present in a preparatory state being tightly strained upward and backward into a knot at the top. She had very black hair and eyes, and a florid complexion, and had an air of being, at least in her own opinion, the superior partner in the household, perhaps because she had been Miss Almira Cubitt, and brought as her dowry, half in the present, and half in the future, the goodwill and stock in trade of the China Parlors. She had brought nothing else,— old Cubitt having been content to jog on all his life just holding his business together, till John Butler, with fresher notions and more energy,' had used the standpoint of the place and name so as to double the profits in a year or two. John, as well as Arthur, had inherited ambition from their father, — an aspiringyoung carpenter, who died after a long illness before he had achieved his great aim of becoming a master-builder; and if the elder brother's hopes were more humble, they ran more chance of being satisfied. He now vibrated between a wish to show off his prosperous condition, and a fear that if he indulged it too openly Arthur would think he ought to do more for his mother. " Come, Arthur," he said, " won't you sit down? We seem to have got rather a picked- up breakfast, but we won't make a stranger of you." " Of course," repeated Mrs. John, with a toss of her hairpins, " If I 'd known you were comin' I 'd have had things a little different. I 've been lookin' for a girl, but it's dreadful hard to get them here. Now, Laurea, stop teasin' a bit," — to her five-year-old daughter, who was muttering something in a whining undertone, as ... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.