THE GOOP MISS KENDRICKS. 7

Just opposite to where they halted, stood, with its
large awkward porch in front, and its large, pleasant
garden behind, the little, low, old-fashioned house,
inhabited by the Miss Kendricks, Joanna and Dorothy.
Their parlour lay a step below the street, and its
window was almost on a level with it ; and, but that
the pavement was always kept so nicely clean before
it, must have been sadly splashed with the rain that
poured down from the clouds, and dripped from the
eaves above. The Miss Kendricks were, if not among
the richest, among the most respectable inhabitants
of the town. Their father, in their early youth, had
been the well-beloved curate of the parish—a man
80 pure and good, and one who so nobly and beauti-
fully performed all his duties, great and small, that
God, to reward him best, took him home to himself.
His wife, heart-broken for his loss, followed him
within twelve months; and left four children, Rebecca,
Joanna, Leonard, and Dorothy, to the care of their
great-uncle, a small shopkeeper of the place. The
uncle was even then an old man—perhaps God spared
his life for the sake of the orphans ; and why not,
when he cares even for the sparrows? He himself
believed it was so; and he lived on, not only to care
for the orphans, but to become of no little consequence
in the place, from being for so long a time “ the oldest
inhabitant ”—a sort of living chronicle of events; a
referee on all difficult or disputed questions of right
or usage. Alas! poor old man, however, all did not
go on so well and smoothly as he hoped and prayed
for: Rebecca, the eldest of the orphans, grew up
somewhat wild and wilful, and married sorely against
his will. It was a marriage of unhappiness and
poverty : she and her husband removed to a remote