As I say, I do
not know what questions Polly and Annie put; but--to give
them their due--they had put on paper a coherent record
of the results arrived at in the answers; though, what
were the numbers of the despatches, or in what order they
came, I do not know; for the session of the synod kept us
at Assampink for two or three weeks
[1] Maria Theresa's husband, Francis, Duke of
Tuscany, was hanging about loose one day, and the
Empress, who had got a little tired, said to the maids of
honor, "Girls, whenever you marry, take care and choose
a husband who has something to do outside of the house."
Mrs. Brannan was the spokesman. "We tried a good
many experiments about day and night. It was very funny
at first not to know when it would be light and when
dark, for really the names day and night do not express
a great deal for us. Of course the pendulum clocks all
went wrong till the men got them overhauled, and I think
watches and clocks both will soon go out of fashion. But
we have settled down on much the old hours, getting up,
without reference to daylight, by our great gong, at your
eight o'clock. But when the eclipse season comes, we
vary from that for signalling.
"We still make separate families, and Alice's is the
seventh. We tried hotel life and we liked it, for there
has never been the first quarrel here.
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