University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.
PAROCHIAL PERFORMANCES.

The poor, conceited blackguards of this ungracious earth
have a fancy that there must be huge confusion and a mighty
bobbery in nature, corresponding with that which is for
ever going on in their own little spheres. If we have a
toothache, we look for a change of weather; our rheumatism
is a sure sign that God has made his arrangements to
give us a slapping rain; and, should the white bull or the
brown heifer die, look out for hail, or thunderstorm, at
least, as a forerunner of the event. Nothing less can possibly
console or satisfy us for such a most unaccountable,
not to say unnatural and unwarrantable, a dispensation.
The poets have ministered largely to this vanity on the
part of mankind. Shakspere is constantly at it, and Ben
Jonson, and all the dramatists. Not a butcher, in the
whole long line of the butchering Cæsars, from Augustus
down, but, according to them, died in a sort of gloom-glory,
resulting from the explosion of innumerable stars
and rockets, and the apparitions of as many comets! “Gorgons,
and hydras, and chimeras dire,” invariably announce
the coming stroke of fate; and five or seven moons of a
night have suddenly arisen to warn some miserable sublunarian
that orders had been issued that there should be no
moon for him that quarter, or, in military and more precise
phrase, that he should have no “quarters” during that moon.
Even our venerable and stern old puritan saint, Milton —

he who was blessed with the blindness of his earthly eye,
that he should be more perfectly enabled to contemplate
the Deity within — has given way to this superstition when
he subjects universal nature to an earthquake because Adam's
wife followed the counsels of the snake.

A pretty condition of things it would be, if stars, suns,
and systems, were to shoot madly from their spheres on
such occasions! Well might the devil laugh if such were
the case! How he would chuckle to behold globes and
seas, and empires, fall into such irreverend antics because
some poor earthling, be he kingling or common sodling,
goes into desuetude, either by the operation of natural laws,
or the sharp application of steel or shot! Verily, it makes
precious little difference to the Great Reaper, by what process
we finally become harvested. He is sure of us, though
no graves gape, no stars fall, no comets rush out, like young
colts from their stables, flinging their tails into the faces of
the more sober and pacific brotherhood of lights. But, denied
the satisfaction of chuckling at such sights as these,
his satanic majesty chuckles not the less at the human vanity
which looks for them. Nay, he himself is very likely
to suggest this vanity. It is one of his forms of temptation
— one of his manœuvres; and we take leave, by way of
warning, to hint to those worthy people, who judge of to-morrow's
providence by the corns of their great toe, or
their periodical lumbago, or the shooting of their warts, or
the pricking of their palms, that it is in truth the devil
which is at the bottom of all this, and that the Deity has
nothing to do in the business. It is the devil instilling his
vanities into the human heart, in that form which he thinks
least likely to prove offensive, or rouse suspicion. The
devil is most active in your affairs, Mrs. Thompson, the moment
you imagine that there must be a revolution on your
account in the universal laws of nature. At such a moment
your best policy will be to have blood let, take physic, and
go with all diligence to your prayers.

There was no sort of warning on the part of the natural
to the moral world, on the day when Alfred Stevens set
forth with the worthy John Cross, to visit the flock of the
latter. There was not a lovelier morning in the whole
calendar. The sun was alone in heaven, without a cloud;
and on earth, the people in and about Charlemont, having
been to church only the day before, necessarily made their
appearance everywhere with petticoats and pantaloons tolerably
clean and unrumpled. Cabbages had not yet been
frost-bitten. Autumn had dressed up her children in the
garments of beauty, preparatory to their funeral. There
was a good crop of grain that year, and hogs were brisk,
and cattle lively, and all “looking-up,” in the language of
the prices current. This was long before the time when
Mr. M— made his famous gammon speeches; but the
people had a presentiment of what was coming, and to
crown the eventful anticipations of the season, there was
quite a freshet in Salt river. The signs were all and everywhere
favorable. Speculation was beginning to chink his
money-bags; three hundred new banks, as many railways,
were about to be established; old things were about to fleet
and disappear; all things were becoming new; and the
serpent entered Charlemont, and made his way among the
people thereof, without any signs of combustion, or overthrow,
or earthquake.

Everybody has some tolerable idea of what the visitation
of a parson is, to the members of his flock. In the big
cities he comes one day, and the quarterly collector the
next. He sits down with the “gude wife” in a corner to
themselves, and he speaks to her in precisely the same low
tones which cunning lovers are apt to use. If he knows
any one art better than another, it is that of finding his
way to the affections of the female part of his flock. A
subdued tone of voice betrays a certain deference for the
party addressed. The lady is pleased with such a preliminary.
She is flattered again by the pains he takes in behalf

of her eternal interests; she is pretty sure he takes no such
pains with any of her neighbors. It is a sign that he thinks
her soul the most becoming little soul in the flock, and
when he goes away, she looks after him and sighs, and
thinks him the most blessed soul of a parson. The next
week she is the first to get up a subscription which she
heads with her own name in connection with a sum realized
by stinting her son of his gingerbread money, in order to
make this excellent parson a life-member of the “Zion
African Bible and Missionary Society, for disseminating
the Word among the Heathen.” The same fifty dollars so
appropriated, would have provided fuel for a month to the
starving poor of her own parish.

But Brother Cross gets no such windfalls. It is probable
that he never heard of such a thing, and that if he did,
he would unhesitatingly cry out, “Humbug,” at the first
intimation of it. Besides, his voice was not capable of
that modulation which a young lover, or a city parson can
give it. Accustomed to cry aloud and spare not, he usually
spoke as if there were some marrow in his bones, and some
vigor in his wind-bags. When he came to see the good
wife of his congregation, he gave her a hearty shake of the
hand, congratulated her as he found her at her spinning-wheel;
spoke with a hearty approbation, if he saw that her
children were civil and cleanly; if otherwise, he blazed out
with proper boldness, by telling her that all her praying
and groaning, would avail nothing for her soul's safety, so
long as Jackey's breeches were unclean; and that the
mother of a rude and dirty child, was as sure of damnation,
as if she never prayed at all. He had no scruples about
speaking the truth. He never looked about him for the
gentle, easy phrases, by which to distinguish the conduct
which he was compelled to condemn. He knew not only
that the truth must be spoken, and be spoken by him, if by
anybody, but that there is no language too strong — perhaps
none quite strong enough — for the utterance of the

truth. But it must not be supposed, that John Cross was
in any respect an intolerant, or sour man. He was no
hypocrite, and did not, therefore, need to clothe his features
in the vinegar costume of that numerous class. His limbs
were put into no such rigid fetters as too often denote the
unnatural restraints which such persons have imposed upon
their inner minds. He could laugh and sing with the merriest,
and though he did not absolutely shake a leg himself,
yet none rejoiced more than he, when Ned Hinkley's fiddle
summoned the village to this primitive exercise.

“Now, Alfred Stevens,” said he, the breakfast being
over, “what say'st thou to a visit with me among my
people. Some of them know thee already; they will all
be rejoiced to see thee. I will show thee how they live,
and if thou shouldst continue to feel within thee, the
growing of that good seed whose quickening thou hast
declared to me, it will be well that thou shouldst begin
early to practise the calling which may so shortly become
thine own. Here mightest thou live a space, toiling in
thy spiritual studies, until the brethren should deem thee
ripe for thy office; meanwhile, thy knowledge of the people
with whom thou livest, and their knowledge of thee,
would be matter of equal comfort and consolation, I trust,
to thee as to them.”

Alfred Stevens expressed himself pleased with the arrangement.
Indeed, he desired nothing else.

“But shall we see all of them?” he demanded. The
arch-hypocrite began to fear that his curiosity would be
compelled to pay a heavy penalty to dullness.

“The flock is small,” said John Cross. “A day will
suffice, but I shall remain three days in Charlemont, and
some I will see to-day, and some to-morrow, and some on
the day after, which is Wednesday.”

“Taken in moderate doses,” murmured Stevens to himself,
“one may stand it.”

He declared himself in readiness, and the twain set

forth. The outward behavior of Stevens was very exemplary.
He had that morning contrived to alter his costume
in some respects to suit the situation of affairs. For example,
he had adopted that slavish affectation which seems
to insist that a preacher of God should always wear a
white cravat, so constructed and worn as to hide the tips
of his shirt collar. If they wore none, they would look
infinitely more noble, and we may add, never suffer from
bronchitis. In his deportment, Stevens was quite as sanctified
as heart could wish. He spoke always deliberately,
and with great unction. If he had to say “cheese and
mousetrap,” he would look very solemn, shake his head
with great gravity and slowness, and then deliberately and
equally emphasizing every syllable, would roll forth the
enormous sentence with all the conscious dignity of an
ancient oracle. That “cheese and mousetrap,” so spoken,
acquired in the ears of the hearer, a degree of importance
and signification, which it confounded them to think they
had never perceived before in the same felicitous collocation
of syllables. John Cross was not without his vanities.
Who is? Vanity is quite as natural as any other of our
endowments. It is a guaranty for amiability. A vain
man is always a conciliatory one. He is kind to others,
because the approbation of others is a strong desire in his
mind. Accordingly, even vanity is not wholly evil. It has
its uses.

John Cross had his share, and Alfred Stevens soon discovered
that he ministered to it in no small degree. The
good old preacher took to himself the credit of having
effected his conversion, so far as it had gone. It was his
hand that had plucked the brand from the burning. He
spoke freely of his protégé, as well before his face as behind
his back. In his presence he dwelt upon the holy
importance of his calling; to others he dilated upon the
importance of securing for the church a young man of so
much talent, yet of so much devotion: qualities not always

united, it would seem, among the churchlings of modern
times.

Alfred Stevens seemed to promise great honor to his
teacher. That cunning which is the wisdom of the worldling,
and which he possessed in a very surprising degree,
enabled him to adopt a course of conduct, look, and remark,
which amply satisfied the exactions of the scrupulous, and
secured the unhesitating confidence of those who were of a
more yielding nature. He soon caught the phraseology of
his companion, and avoiding his intensity, was less likely
to offend his hearers. His manner was better subdued to
the social tone of ordinary life, his voice lacked the sharp
twang of the backwoods man; and, unlike John Cross, he
was able to modulate it to those undertones, which, as we
have before intimated, are so agreeable from the lips of
young lovers and fashionable preachers. At all events,
John Cross himself, was something more than satisfied with
his pupil, and took considerable pains to show him off. He
was a sort of living and speaking monument of the good
man's religious prowess.

It does not need that we should follow the two into all
the abodes which they were compelled to visit. The reader
would scarcely conceal his yawns though Stevens did.
Enough, that a very unctuous business was made of it that
morning. Many an old lady was refreshed with the spiritual
beverage bestowed in sufficient quantity to last for
another quarter; while many a young one rejoiced in the
countenance of so promising a shepherd as appeared under
the name of Alfred Stevens. But the latter thought of the
one damsel only. He said many pleasant things to those
whom he did see; but his mind ran only upon one. He
began to apprehend that she might be among the flock
who were destined to wait for the second or last day's visitation;
when, to his great relief, John Cross called his
attention to the dwelling of the widow Cooper, to whom
they were fast approaching.

Stevens remarked that the dwelling had very much the
appearance of poverty — he did not fail to perceive that it
lacked the flower-garden in front which distinguished the
greater number of the cottages iu Charlemont; and there
was an appearance of coldness and loneliness about its
externals which impressed itself very strongly upon his
thoughts, and seemed to speak unfavorably for the taste of
the inmates. One is apt to associate the love of flowers
with sweetness and gentleness of disposition, and such a
passion would seem as natural, as it certainly would be becoming,
to a young lady of taste and sensibility. But the
sign is a very doubtful one. Taste and gentleness may
satisfy themselves with other objects. A passion for books
is very apt to exclude a very active passion for flowers, and
it will be found, I suspect, that these persons who are most
remarkable for the cultivation of flowers are least sensible
to the charms of letters. It seems monstrous, indeed, that
a human being should expend hours and days in the nursing
and tendance of such stupid beauties as plants and flowers,
when earth is filled with so many lovelier objects that come
to us commended by the superior sympathies which belong
to humanity. Our cities are filled with the sweetest
orphans — flowers destined to be immortal; angels in form,
that might be angels in spirit — that must be, whether for
good or evil — whom we never cultivate — whom we suffer
to escape our tendance, and leave to the most pitiable ignorance,
and the most wretched emergencies of want. The
life that is wasted upon dahlias, must, prima facie, be the
life of one heartless and insensible, and most probably,
brutish in a high degree.

But Alfred Stevens had very little time for further reflection.
They were at the door of the cottage. Never did
the widow Cooper receive her parson in more tidy trim,
and with an expression of less qualified delight. She brought
forth the best chair, brushed the deerskin-seat with her
apron, and having adjusted the old man to her own satisfaction

as well as his, she prepared to do a like office for
the young one. Having seated them fairly, and smoothed
her apron, and gone through the usual preliminaries, and
placed herself a little aloof, on a third seat, and rubbed her
hands, and struggled into a brief pause in her brisk action,
she allowed her tongue to do the office for which her whole
soul was impatient.

“Oh, Brother Cross, what a searching sermon you gave
us yesterday. You stirred the hearts of everybody, I warrant
you, as you stirred up mine. We've been a needing it
for a precious long time, I tell you; and there's no knowing
what more's a wanting to make us sensible to the evil that's
in us. I know from myself what it is, and I guess from the
doings of others. We're none of us perfect, that's certain;
but it's no harm to say that some's more and some's not so
perfect as others. There's a difference in sin, Brother
Cross, I'm a thinking, and I'd like you to explain why, and
what's the difference. One won't have so much, and one
will have more; one will take a longer spell of preaching,
and half the quantity will be a dose to work another out
clean, entire. I'm not boastful for myself, Brother Cross,
but I do say, I'd give up in despair if I thought it took
half so much to do me, as it would take for a person like
that Mrs. Thackeray.”

“Sister Cooper,” said brother Cross, rebukingly, “beware
of the temptation to vain-glory. Be not like the
Pharisee, disdainful of the publican. To be too well pleased
with one's self is to be displeasing to the Lord.”

“Oh, Brother Cross, don't be thinking that I'm over and
above satisfied with the goodness that's in me. I know I'm
not so good. I have a great deal of evil; but then it seems
to me there's a difference in good and a difference in evil.
One has most of one and one has most of another. None
of us have much good, and all of us have a great deal of
sin. God help me, for I need his help — I have my own

share; but as for that Mrs. Thackeray, she's as full of wickedness
as an an egg's full of meat.”

“It is not the part of Christianity, Sister Cooper,” said
John Cross mildly, “to look into our neighbors' accounts
and make comparisons between their doings and our own.
We can only do so at great risk of making a false reckoning.
Besides, Sister Cooper, it is business enough on our
hands, if we see to our own short-comings. As for Mrs.
Thackeray, I have no doubt she's no better than the rest
of us, and we are all, as you said before, children of suffering,
and prone to sin as certain as that the sparks fly upward.
We must only watch and pray without ceasing,
particularly that we may not deceive ourselves with the
most dangerous sin of being too sure of our own works.
The good deeds that we boast of so much in our earthly
day will shrivel and shrink up at the last account to so small
a size that the best of us, through shame and confusion,
will be only too ready to call upon the rocks and hills to
cover us. We are very weak and foolish all, Sister Cooper.
We can't believe ourselves too weak, or too mean, or too
sinful. To believe this with all our hearts, and to try to
be better with all our strength, is the true labor of religion.
God send it to us, in all its sweetness and perfection, so
that we may fight the good fight without ceasing.”

“But if you could only hear of the doings of Mrs. Thackeray,
Brother Cross, you'd see how needful it would be to
put forth all your strength to bring her back to the right
path.”

“The Lord will know. None of us can hide our evil
from the eyes of the Lord. I will strive with our sister,
when I seek her, which will be this very noon, but it is of
yourself, Sister Cooper, and your daughter Margaret, that I
would speak. Where is she that I see her not?”

This was the question that made our quasi hierophant
look up with a far greater degree of interest than he had
felt in the long and random twattle to which he had been

compelled to listen. Where was she — that fair daughter?
He was impatient for the answer. But he was not long
detained in suspense. Next to her neighbors there was no
subject of whom the mother so loved to speak as the daughter,
and the daughter's excellences.

“Ah! she is up-stairs, at her books, as usual. She does
so love them books, Brother Cross, I'm afraid it'll do harm
to her health. She cares for nothing half so well. Morning,
noon, and night, all the same, you find her poring
over them; and even when she goes out to ramble, she
must have a book, and she wants no other company. For
my part I can't see what she finds in them to love so; for
except to put a body to sleep I never could see the use
they were to any person yet.”

“Books are of two kinds,” said Brother Cross gravely.
“They are useful or hurtful. The useful kinds are good,
the hurtful kinds are bad. The Holy Bible is the first
book, and the only book, as I reckon it will be the book
that'll live longest. The `Life of Whitefield' is a good book,
and I can recommend the sermons of that good man, Brother
Peter Cummins, that preached when I was a lad, all along
through the back parts of North Carolina, into South Carolina
and Georgia. I can't say that he came as far back into
the west as these parts; but he was a most faithful shepherd.
There was a book of his sermons printed for the
benefit of his widow and children. He died, like that blessed
man, John Rogers, that we see in the primer-books, leaving
a wife with eleven children and one at the breast. His
sermons are very precious reading. One of them in particular,
on the Grace of God, is a very falling of manna in
the wilderness. It freshens the soul, and throws light upon
the dark places in the wilderness. Ah! if only such books
were printed, what a precious world for poor souls it would
be. But they print a great many bad books now-a-days.”

The natural love of mischief which prevailed in the bosom
of Alfred Stevens now prompted him to take part in the

conversation at this happy moment. The opportunity was
a tempting one.

“The printers,” said he, “are generally very bad men.
They call themselves devils, and take young lads and bring
them up to their business under that name!”

The old lady threw up her hands, and John Cross, to
whom this intelligence was wholly new, inquired with a sort
of awe-struck gravity —

“Can this be true, Alfred Stevens? Is this possible?”

“The fact, sir. They go by no other name among themselves;
and you may suppose, if they are not ashamed of
the name, they are not unwilling to perform the doings of
the devil. Indeed, they are busy doing his business from
morning to night — and night to morning. They don't stop
for the sabbath. They work on Sunday the same as any
other day, and if they take any rest at all it is on Saturday,
which would show them to be a kind of Jews.”

“Good Lord deliver us!” ejaculated the widow.

“Where, O! where?” exclaimed the Brother Cross with
similar earnestness. The game was too pleasant for Alfred
Stevens. He pursued it.

“In such cities,” he continued, “as New York and Philadelphia,
thousands of these persons are kept in constant
employ sending forth those books of falsehood and folly
which fill the hearts of the young with vain imaginings, and
mislead the footsteps of the unwary. In one of these establishments,
four persons preside, who are considered brothers;
but they are brothers in sin only, and are by some supposed
to be no other. They have called themselves after
the names of saints and holy men; even the names of the
thrice blessed apostles, John and James, have been in this
fashion abused; but if it be true that the spirits of evil may
even in our day as of old embody themselves in mortal shape
for the better enthralling and destruction of mankind, then
should I prefer to believe that these persons were no other
than the evil demons who ruled in Ashdod and Assyria.

Such is their perseverance in evil — such their busy industry,
which keeps a thousand authors (which is but another
name for priests and prophets) constantly at work to frame
cunning falsehoods and curious devices, and winning fancies,
which when printed and made into books, turn the heads
of the young and unwary, and blind the soul to the wrath
which is to come.”

The uplifted hands of the widow Cooper still attested her
wonder.

“Lord save us!” she exclaimed, “I should not think it
strange if Sister Thackeray had some of these very books.
Do ask, Brother Cross, when you go to see her. She speaks
much of books, and I see her reading them whenever I look
in at the back window.”

John Cross did not seem to give any heed to the remark
of the old woman. There was a theological point involved
in one of the remarks of Alfred Stevens which he evidently
regarded as of the first importance.

“What you say, Alfred Stevens, is very new and very
strange to me, and I should think from what I already know
of the evil which is sometimes put in printed books, that
there was indeed a spirit of malice at work in this way, to
help the progress and the conquests of Satan among our
blind and feeble race. But I am not prepared to believe
that God has left it to Satan to devise so fearful a scheme
for prosecuting his evil designs as that of making the demons
of Ashdod and Assyria take the names of mortal men, while
seeming to follow mortal occupations. It would be fearful
tidings for our poor race were this so. But if so, is it not
seen that there is a difference in the shapes of these persons.
If either of these brothers who blasphemously call themselves
John and James, after the manner of the apostles, shall
be in very truth and certainty that Dagon of the Philistines
whom Jehovah smote before his altar, will he not be made
fishlike from the waist downward, and will this not be seen
by his followers and some of the thousands whom he daily

perverts to his evil purposes and so leads to eternal destruction?”

“It may be that it is permitted to such a demon to put
on what shape he thinks proper,” replied Stevens; “but
even if it is not, yet this would not be the subject of any
difference — it would scarcely prevent the prosecution of
this evil purpose. You are to remember, Mr. Cross—”

“John Cross — plain John Cross, Alfred Stevens,” was
the interruption of the preacher.

“You are to remember,” Stevens resumed, “that when
the heart is full of sin, the eyes are full of blindness. The
people who believe in these evil beings are incapable of
seeing their deformities.”

“That is true — a sad truth.”

“And, again,” continued Stevens, “there are devices of
mere mortal art, by which the deformities and defects of an
individual may be concealed. One of these brothers, I am
told, is never to be seen except seated in one position at the
same desk, and this desk is so constructed, as to hide his
lower limbs in great part, while still enabling him to prosecute
his nefarious work.”

“It's clear enough, Brother Cross,” exclaimed the widow
Cooper, now thoroughly convinced — “it's clear enough
that there's something that he wants to hide. Lord help
us! but these things are terrible.”

“To the weak and the wicked, Sister Cooper, they are,
as you say, terrible, and hence the need that we should have
our lamps trimmed and lighted, for the same light which
brings us to the sight of the Holy of Holies, shows us the
shape of hatefulness, the black and crouching form of Satan,
with nothing to conceal his deformity. Brother Stevens
has well said that when the heart is full of sin, the eyes
are full of blindness; and so we may say that when the
heart is full of godliness, the eyes are full of seeing. You
can not blind them with devilish arts. You can not delude
them as to the true forms of Satan, let him take any shape.

The eye of godliness sees clean through the mask of sin, as
the light of the sun pierces the thickest cloud, and brings
day after the darkest night.”

“Oh! what a blessed thing to hear you say so.”

“More blessed to believe, Sister Cooper, and believing,
to pray with all your heart for this same eye of godliness.
But we should not only pray but work. Working for God
is the best sort of prayer. We must do something in his
behalf: and this reminds me, Sister Cooper, that if there is
so much evil spread abroad in these books, we should look
heedfully into the character of such as fall into the hands
of the young and the unmindful of our flock.”

“That is very true; that is just what I was thinking of,
Brother Cross. You can not look too close, I'm thinking
into such books as you'll find at the house of Widow Thackeray.
I can give a pretty 'cute guess where she gets all that
sort of talk, that seems so natural at the end of her tongue.”

“Verily, I will speak with Sister Thackeray on this subject,”
responded the pastor — “but your own books, Sister
Cooper, and those of your daughter Margaret — if it is
convenient, I should prefer to examine them now while I
am here.”

“What! Margaret's books! examine Margaret's books!”

“Even so, while I am present and while Brother Stevens
is here, also, to give me his helping counsel in the way of
judgment.”

“Why, bless us, Brother Cross, you don't suppose that
my daughter Margaret would keep any but the properest
books? she's too sensible, I can tell you, for that. She's
no books but the best; none, I'll warrant you, like them
you'll find at Widow Thackeray's. She's not to be put off
with bad books. She goes through 'em with a glance of
the eye. Ah! she's too smart to be caught by the contrivances
of those devils, though in place of four brothers there
was four thousand of 'em. No, no! let her alone for that
— she's a match for the best of 'em.”

“But as Brother Stevens said,” continued John Cross,
“where sin gets into the heart, the eye is blinded to the
truth. Now—”

“Her eye's not blinded, Brother Cross, I can tell you.
They can't cheat her with their books. She has none but
the very best. I'll answer for them. None of them ever
did me any harm; and I reckon none of them 'll ever hurt
her. But I'm mistaken, if you don't have a real burning
when you get to Mrs. Thackeray's.”

“But, Sister Cooper—” commenced the preacher.

“Yes, Brother Cross,” replied the dame.

“Books, as I said before, are of two kinds.”

“Yes, I know — good and bad — I only wonder there's
no indifferent ones among 'em,” replied the lady.

“They should be examined for the benefit of the young
and ignorant.”

“Oh, yes, and for more besides, for Mrs. Thackeray's
not young, that's clear enough; and I know there's a good
many things that she's not ignorant of. She's precious
knowing about many things that don't do her much good;
and if the books could unlearn her, I'd say for one let her
keep 'em. But as for looking at Margaret's books — why,
Brother Cross, you surely know Margaret?”

The preacher answered meekly, but negatively.

“Ain't she about the smartest girl you ever met with?”
continued the mother.

“God has certainly blessed her with many gifts,” was
the reply, “but where the trust is great, the responsibility
is great also.”

“Don't she know it?”

“I trust she does, Sister Cooper.”

“You may trust every bit of it. She's got the smartness,
the same as it is in books—”

“But the gift of talents, Sister Cooper, is a dangerous gift.”

“I don't see, Brother Cross, how good things that come
from God can be dangerous things.”

“If I could see the books, Sister Cooper; — I say not
that they are evil—”

John Cross began in tones that denoted something like
despair; certainly dissatisfaction was in them, when Alfred
Stevens, who had long since tired of what was going on,
heard a light footfall behind him. He turned his eyes and
beheld the fair maiden, herself, the propriety of whose
reading was under discussion, standing in the doorway.
It appeared that she had gathered from what had reached
her ears, some knowledge of what was going on, for a smile
of ineffable scorn curled her classic and nobly-chiselled
mouth, while her brow was the index to a very haughty
volume. In turning, Alfred Stevens betrayed to her the
playful smile upon his own lips — their eyes met, and that
single glance established a certain understanding between
them.

Her coming did not avail to stifle the subject of discussion.
John Cross was too resolute in the prosecution of his supposed
duty, to give up the cause he had once undertaken.
He had all the inveteracy of the stout old puritan. The
usual introduction over and he resumed, though he now addressed
himself to the daughter rather than the mother.
She scarcely heard him to the end.

“The books were my father's, Mr. Cross; they are valuable
to me on that account. They are dear to me on their
own. They are almost my only companions, and though I
believe you would find nothing in them which might be
held detrimental, yet I must confess, if there were, I should
be sorry to be made acquainted with the fact. I have not
yet discovered it myself, and should be loath to have it
shown by another.”

“But you will let me see them, Margaret?”

“Yes, sir, whenever you please. I can have no objection
to that, but if by seeing them you only desire an opportunity
to say what I shall read and what not, I can only tell
you that your labor will be taken in vain. Indeed, the evil

is already done. I have not a volume which I have not
read repeatedly.”

It is needless to add that Brother Cross was compelled
to forego his book examination at the widow Cooper's,
though strongly recommended there to press it at Widow
Thackeray's. Alfred Stevens was a mute observer during
the interview, which did not last very long after the appearance
of Margaret. He was confirmed in all his previous
impressions of her beauty, nor did the brevity of the conference
prevent him from perceiving her intense self-esteem,
which under certain influences of temperament is only another
name for vanity. Besides they had exchanged glances
which were volumes, rendering unnecessary much future
explanation. She had seen that he was secretly laughing
at the simple preacher, and that was a source of sympathy
between them. She was very much in the habit of doing
the same thing. He, on the other hand, was very well satisfied
that the daughter of such a mother must be perverse
and vain; and he was moralist enough to know that there
is no heart so accessible to the tempter as the proud and
wilful heart. But few words had passed between them,
but those were expressive, and they both parted, with the
firm conviction that they must necessarily meet again.