squire had left him with the ladies, and he had been entertaining them with an account of the adventure of the preceding night.
"And I can assure you, madam," he said to his hostess, when they had hung attentively on his words, and cried, "Wretch!" "Villains!" "How monstrous shocking!" at appropriate intervals, "that so deep-rooted has this evil become, that even the parson and his young daughter appeared to grieve more for the smuggler whom I wounded than they did for the poor fellow whom the ruffians shot!"
"His daughter! Oh, do you mean Mistress Joan?" said Mrs. Waldron, pursing her mouth a little. "Sure, sir, what would you expect from a country-bred wench like that, who tramps the villages and moors with her father like a man, and is almost as much among these fearsome wretches, the smugglers, as if she were their own kin?"
"Oh, la, sir; you must know they call her 'the curate,'" cried one of the young ladies, tittering, and looking languishingly at the visitor out of her little pink-rimmed eyes with the whitish eyelashes; "for she's quite as useful in his parish as he is."
