eminently respectable about an old clock of this kind, and it would have been audacity unheard of for any member of the family to doubt its reliability. Set once a year, it was expected to retain its steady-going habits for the rest of the twelvemonth. You dared not charge it with being slow; and as for being too fast, why, the very idea was absurd. There was sure to be some white-capped, silver-haired old lady, whose long years had been counted by the venerable pendulum with unerring precision, ready to defend the cause of the clock, to vouch for its accuracy, and to plead its cause so well and so skillfully, that you were ready to hide your face in shame at the thought of having even suspected the veracity of so venerable and so honored an institution.
Truth to say, however, these old clocks, to the masses of the people of this country, were objects of admiration, and nothing more; for their