Even as children the very sight of Martha Browning's solemn face"Peregrine drew his countenance down into a portentous length"her horror at the slightest word or sport, her stiff broomstick carriage, all impelled me to the most impish tricks.

They had been made by swinging a barrel hoop from a broomstick handle, by means of a number of ribbon-like strips of cloth.

You are thinking of a broomstick marriage.

She could study over her lameness, she could in the dull course of time think out the broomstick way of palliation.