of snuff—"how old are the two twins, Jenny Hart?"
"Just seven years old, Mrs. Martin Barton," and Jenny Hart had answered this question of the age of the two twins ever since they were a year old. Mr. Martin Barton never knew, and Mrs. Martin Barton always forgot.
"As to building another room, Mr. Martin Barton, that will never do," (oh, how Ira Elkado stared to see what a sway she had!) said Jenny Hart,—"for the back parlour is dark enough already, and we shall have less draft through the shop, too, if we clutter up the yard; but the twins are soon going to school; I spoke to Mrs. Playfair yesterday,—she was buying canvass of me,—and she has promised to take good care of the children, and for one year let them off easy—after that," said she, whispering in Mrs. Martin Barton's ear—"after that, we'll get poor old Hojer to teach them at home, and Mrs. Armstrong will be a sort of governess to them; for old Hojer Bringle is a dead weight in the shop."
"Good," said Mrs. Martin Barton, and she went the other side of Jenny Hart and whispered it to Martin Barton. "Good," said he.
"Oh, if I had only the ruling of that girl," thought Ira Elkado, "how I would quell her." Just as he said this, mentally, however, Jenny Hart, who had sold a gross of pearl buttons while the Martin Bartons were saying "good, good," thrust a bad shilling in his hand. "You took that bad shilling from a boy, yesterday," said she, "and gave it to Amy Russel this morning; it has come back, and it must be charged to you." Ira Elkado put it in his pocket and gave her a good shilling; but the moment her quick eye was directed to something else, he slipped the bad piece of money in old Hosea Bringle's drawer and helped himself to another, for he did not see why he should lose it.
