University of Virginia Library

24. CHAPTER XXIV.
MYSTERIES.

When Mrs. Marvyn began to amend, Mary returned
to the home cottage, and resumed the
details of her industrious and quiet life.

Between her and her two best friends had faller
a curtain of silence. The subject that filled all her
thoughts could not be named between them. The
Doctor often looked at her pale cheeks and drooping
form with a face of honest sorrow, and heaved
deep sighs as she passed; but he did not find
any power within himself by which he could
approach her. When he would speak, and she
turned her sad, patient eyes so gently on him, the
words went back again to his heart, and there,
taking a second thought, spread upward wing in
prayer.

Mrs. Scudder sometimes came to her room after
she was gone to bed, and found her weeping; and
when gently she urged her to sleep, she would wipe
her eyes so patiently and turn her head with such
obedient sweetness, that her mother's heart utterly

failed her. For hours Mary sat in her room with
James's last letter spread out before her. How
anxiously had she studied every word and phrase
in it, weighing them to see if the hope of eternal
life were in them! How she dwelt on those last
promises! Had he kept them? Ah! to die without
one word more! Would no angel tell her? —
would not the loving God, who knew all, just
whisper one word? He must have read the little
Bible! What had he thought? What did he feel
in that awful hour when he felt himself drifting on
to that fearful eternity? Perhaps he had been regenerated,
— perhaps there had been a sudden change;
— who knows? — she had read of such things; —
perhaps — Ah, in that perhaps lies a world of
anguish! Love will not hear of it. Love dies for
certainty. Against an uncertainty who can brace
the soul? We put all our forces of faith and
prayer against it, and it goes down just as a buoy
sinks in the water, and the next moment it is up
again. The soul fatigues itself with efforts which
come and go in waves; and when with laborious
care she has adjusted all things in the light of
hope, back flows the tide, and sweeps all away.
In such struggles life spends itself fast; an inward
wound does not carry one deathward more surely
than this worst wound of the soul. God has
made us so mercifully that there is no certainty,
however dreadful, to which life-forces do not in
time adjust themselves, — but to uncertainty there
is no possible adjustment. Where is he? Oh,
question of questions! — question which we suppress,
but which a power of infinite force still
urges on the soul, who feels a part of herself torn
away.

Mary sat at her window in evening hours, and
watched the slanting sunbeams through the green
blades of grass, and thought one year ago he
stood there, with his well-knit, manly form, his
bright eye, his buoyant hope, his victorious mastery
of life! And where was he now? Was his
heart as sick, longing for her, as hers for him?
Was he looking back to earth and its joys with
pangs of unutterable regret? or had a divine
power interpenetrated his soul, and lighted there
the flame of a celestial love which bore him far
above earth? If he were among the lost, in what
age of eternity could she ever be blessed? Could
Christ be happy, if those who were one with Him
were sinful and accursed? and could Christ's own
loved ones be happy, when those with whom they
have exchanged being, in whom they live and feel,
are as wandering stars, for whom is reserved the
mist of darkness forever? She had been taught
that the agonies of the lost would be forever in
sight of the saints, without abating in the least
their eternal joys; nay, that they would find in it
increasing motives to praise and adoration. Could

it be so? Would the last act of the great Bridegroom
of the Church be to strike from the heart
of his purified Bride those yearnings of self-devoting
love which His whole example had taught her,
and in which she reflected, as in a glass, His own
nature? If not, is there not some provision by
which those roots of deathless love which Christ's
betrothed ones strike into other hearts shall have
a divine, redeeming power? Question vital as
life-blood to ten thousand hearts, — fathers, mothers,
wives, husbands, — to all who feel the infinite
sacredness of love!

After the first interview with Mrs. Marvyn, the
subject which had so agitated them was not renewed.
She had risen at last from her sick-bed,
as thin and shadowy as a faded moon after sunrise.
Candace often shook her head mournfully, as
her eyes followed her about her daily tasks. Once
only, with Mary, she alluded to the conversation
which had passed between them; — it was one day
when they were together, spinning, in the north
upper room that looked out upon the sea. It was
a glorious day. A ship was coming in under full
sail, with white gleaming wings. Mrs. Marvyn
watched it a few moments, — the gay creature, so
full of exultant life, — and then smothered down
an inward groan, and Mary thought she heard her
saying, “Thy will be done!”

“Mary,” she said, gently, “I hope you will forget

all I said to you that dreadful day. It had to
be said, or I should have died. Mary, I begin to
think that it is not best to stretch our minds with
reasonings where we are so limited, where we can
know so little. I am quite sure there must be
dreadful mistakes somewhere.

“It seems to me irreverent and shocking that a
child should oppose a father, or a creature its Creator.
I never should have done it, only that, where
direct questions are presented to the judgment, one
cannot help judging. If one is required to praise
a being as just and good, one must judge of his
actions by some standard of right, — and we have
no standard but such as our Creator has placed in
us. I have been told it was my duty to attend to
these subjects, and I have tried to, — and the result
has been that the facts presented seem wholly
irreconcilable with any notions of justice or mercy
that I am able to form. If these be the facts, I
can only say that my nature is made entirely opposed
to them. If I followed the standard of right
they present, and acted according to my small
mortal powers on the same principles, I should be
a very bad person. Any father, who should make
such use of power over his children as they say
the Deity does with regard to us, would be looked
upon as a monster by our very imperfect moral
sense. Yet I cannot say that the facts are not so.
When I heard the Doctor's sermons on `Sin a

Necessary Means of the Greatest Good,' I could
not extricate myself from the reasoning.

“I have thought, in desperate moments, of giving
up the Bible itself. But what do I gain? Do
I not see the same difficulty in Nature? I see
everywhere a Being whose main ends seem to be
beneficent, but whose good purposes are worked
out at terrible expense of suffering, and apparently
by the total sacrifice of myriads of sensitive creatures.
I see unflinching order, general good-will,
but no sympathy, no mercy. Storms, earthquakes,
volcanoes, sickness, death, go on without regarding
us. Everywhere I see the most hopeless, unrelieved
suffering, — and for aught I see, it may be
eternal. Immortality is a dreadful chance, and I
would rather never have been. — The Doctor's
dreadful system is, I confess, much like the laws
of Nature, — about what one might reason out
from them.

“There is but just one thing remaining, and
that is, as Candace said, the cross of Christ. If
God so loved us, — if He died for us, — greater
love hath no man than this. It seems to me
that love is shown here in the two highest
forms possible to our comprehension. We see
a Being who gives himself for us, — and more
than that, harder than that, a Being who consents
to the suffering of a dearer than self.
Mary, I feel that I must love more, to give up

one of my children to suffer, than to consent to
suffer myself. There is a world of comfort to me
in the words, `He that spared not his own Son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not
with him also freely give us all things?' These
words speak to my heart. I can interpret them
by my own nature, and I rest on them. If there
is a fathomless mystery of sin and sorrow, there
is a deeper mystery of God's love. So, Mary, I
try Candace's way, — I look at Christ, — I pray to
Him. If he that hath seen Him hath seen the
Father, it is enough. I rest there, — I wait. What
I know not now I shall know hereafter.”

Mary kept all things and pondered them in her
heart. She could speak to no one, — not to her
mother, nor to her spiritual guide; for had she
not passed to a region beyond theirs? As well
might those on the hither side of mortality instruct
the souls gone beyond the veil as souls outside a
great affliction guide those who are struggling in
it. That is a mighty baptism, and only Christ can
go down with us into those waters.

Mrs. Scudder and the Doctor only marked that
she was more than ever conscientious in every
duty, and that she brought to life's daily realities
something of the calmness and disengagedness of
one whose soul has been wrenched by a mighty
shock from all moorings here below. Hopes did
not excite, fears did not alarm her; life had no

force strong enough to awaken a thrill within;
and the only subjects on which she ever spoke
with any degree of ardor were religious subjects.

One who should have seen moving about the
daily ministrations of the cottage a pale girl,
whose steps were firm, whose eye was calm,
whose hands were ever busy, would scarce imagine
that through that silent heart were passing
tides of thought that measured a universe; but it
was even so. Through that one gap of sorrow
flowed in the whole awful mystery of existence,
and silently, as she spun and sewed, she thought
over and over again all that she had ever been
taught, and compared and revolved it by the light
of a dawning inward revelation.

Sorrow is the great birth-agony of immortal
powers, — sorrow is the great searcher and revealer
of hearts, the great test of truth; for Plato has
wisely said, sorrow will not endure sophisms, — all
shams and unrealities melt in the fire of that
awful furnace. Sorrow reveals forces in ourselves
we never dreamed of. The soul, a bound
and sleeping prisoner, hears her knock on her cell-door,
and wakens. Oh, how narrow the walls!
oh, how close and dark the grated window! how
the long useless wings beat against the impassable
barriers! Where are we? What is this prison?
What is beyond? Oh for more air, more light!
When will the door be opened? The soul seems

to itself to widen and deepen; it trembles at its
own dreadful forces; it gathers up in waves that
break with wailing only to flow back into the
everlasting void. The calmest and most centred
natures are sometimes thrown by the shock of a
great sorrow into a tumultuous amazement. All
things are changed. The earth no longer seems
solid, the skies no longer secure; a deep abyss
seems underlying every joyous scene of life. The
soul, struck with this awful inspiration, is a mournful
Cassandra; she sees blood on every threshold,
and shudders in the midst of mirth and festival
with the weight of a terrible wisdom.

Who shall dare be glad any more, that has
once seen the frail foundations on which love and
joy are built? Our brighter hours, have they
only been weaving a network of agonizing remembrances
for this day of bereavement? The heart
is pierced with every past joy, with every hope of
its ignorant prosperity. Behind every scale in
music, the gayest and cheeriest, the grandest, the
most triumphant, lies its dark relative minor; the
notes are the same, but the change of a semitone
changes all to gloom; — all our gayest hours are
tunes that have a modulation into these dreary
keys ever possible; at any moment the key-note
may be struck.

The firmest, best-prepared natures are often beside
themselves with astonishment and dismay,

when they are called to this dread initiation
They thought it a very happy world before, — a
glorious universe. Now it is darkened with the
shadow of insoluble mysteries. Why this everlasting
tramp of inevitable laws on quivering life?
If the wheels must roll, why must the crushed be
so living and sensitive?

And yet sorrow is godlike, sorrow is grand and
great, sorrow is wise and far-seeing. Our own
instinctive valuations, the intense sympathy which
we give to the tragedy which God has inwoven
into the laws of Nature, show us that it is with
no slavish dread, no cowardly shrinking, that we
should approach her divine mysteries. What are
the natures that cannot suffer? Who values them?
From the fat oyster, over which the silver tide
rises and falls without one pulse upon its fleshy
ear, to the hero who stands with quivering nerve
parting with wife and child and home for country
and God, all the way up is an ascending scale,
marked by increasing power to suffer; and when
we look to the Head of all being, up through
principalities and powers and princedoms, with
dazzling orders and celestial blazonry, to behold
by what emblem the Infinite Sovereign chooses
to reveal himself, we behold, in the midst of the
throne, “a lamb as it had been slain.”

Sorrow is divine. Sorrow is reigning on the
throne of the universe, and the crown of all

crowns has been one of thorns. There have been
many books that treat of the mystery of sorrow,
but only one that bids us glory in tribulation, and
count it all joy when we fall into divers afflictions,
that so we may be associated with that
great fellowship of suffering of which the Incarnate
God is the head, and through which He is
carrying a redemptive conflict to a glorious victory
over evil. If we suffer with Him, we shall
also reign with Him.

Even in the very making up of our physical
nature, God puts suggestions of such a result.
“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh
in the morning.” There are victorious powers
in our nature which are all the while working for
us in our deepest pain. It is said, that, after the
sufferings of the rack, there ensues a period in
which the simple repose from torture produces a
beatific trance; it is the reaction of Nature, asserting
the benignant intentions of her Creator.
So, after great mental conflicts and agonies must
come a reaction, and the Divine Spirit, co-working
with our spirit, seizes the favorable moment, and,
interpenetrating natural laws with a celestial vitality,
carries up the soul to joys beyond the ordinary
possibilities of mortality.

It is said that gardeners, sometimes, when they
would bring a rose to richer flowering, deprive it
for a season, of light and moisture. Silent and

dark it stands, dropping one fading leaf after another,
and seeming to go down patiently to death.
But when every leaf is dropped, and the plant
stands stripped to the uttermost, a new life is
even then working in the buds, from which shall
spring a tender foliage and a brighter wealth of
flowers. So, often in celestial gardening, every
leaf of earthly joy must drop, before a new and
divine bloom visits the soul.

Gradually, as months passed away the floods
grew still; the mighty rushes of the inner tides
ceased to dash. There came first a delicious
calmness, and then a celestial inner clearness, in
which the soul seemed to lie quiet as an untroubled
ocean, reflecting heaven. Then came the fulness
of mysterious communion given to the pure
in heart, — that advent of the Comforter in the
soul, teaching all things and bringing all things
to remembrance; and Mary moved in a world
transfigured by a celestial radiance. Her face, so
long mournfully calm, like some chiselled statue
of Patience, now wore a radiance, as when one
places a light behind some alabaster screen sculptured
with mysterious and holy emblems, and
words of strange sweetness broke from her, as if
one should hear snatches of music from a door
suddenly opened in heaven. Something wise and
strong and sacred gave an involuntary impression
of awe in her looks and words; — it was not the

childlike loveliness of early days, looking with
dovelike, ignorant eyes on sin and sorrow; but
the victorious sweetness of that great multitude
who have come out of great tribulation, having
washed their robes and made them white in the
blood of the Lamb. In her eyes there was that
nameless depth that one sees with awe in the
Sistine Madonna, — eyes that have measured infinite
sorrow and looked through it to an infinite
peace.

“My dear Madam,” said the Doctor to Mrs.
Scudder, “I cannot but think that there must be
some uncommonly gracious exercises passing in
the mind of your daughter; for I observe, that,
though she is not inclined to conversation, she
seems to be much in prayer; and I have, of late,
felt the sense of a Divine Presence with her in a
most unusual degree. Has she opened her mind
to you?”

“Mary was always a silent girl,” said Mrs.
Scudder, “and not given to speaking of her own
feelings; indeed, until she gave you an account of
her spiritual state, on joining the church, I never
knew what her exercises were. Hers is a most singular
case. I never knew the time when she did
not seem to love God more than anything else. It
has disturbed me sometimes, — because I did not
know but it might be mere natural sensibility, instead
of gracious affection”

“Do not disturb yourself, Madam,” said the
Doctor. “The Spirit worketh when, where, and
how He will; and, undoubtedly, there have been
cases where His operations commence exceedingly
early. Mr. Edwards relates a case of a young
person who experienced a marked conversion when
three years of age; and Jeremiah was called from
the womb. (Jeremiah, i. 5.) In all cases we must
test the quality of the evidence without relation
to the time of its commencement. I do not generally
lay much stress on our impressions, which
are often uncertain and delusive; yet I have had
an impression that the Lord would be pleased to
make some singular manifestations of His grace
through this young person. In the economy of
grace there is neither male nor female; and Peter
says (Acts, ii. 17) that the Spirit of the Lord
shall be poured out and your sons and your
daughters shall prophesy. Yet if we consider that
the Son of God, as to his human nature, was
made of a woman, it leads us to see that in matters
of grace God sets a special value on woman's
nature and designs to put special honor upon it.
Accordingly, there have been in the Church, in all
ages, holy women who have received the Spirit
and been called to a ministration in the things of
God, — such as Deborah, Huldah, and Anna, the
prophetess. In our own days, most uncommon
manifestations of divine grace have been given to

holy women. It was my privilege to be in the
family of President Edwards at a time when
Northampton was specially visited, and his wife
seemed and spoke more like a glorified spirit than
a mortal woman, — and multitudes flocked to the
house to hear her wonderful words. She seemed
to have such a sense of the Divine love as was
almost beyond the powers of nature to endure.
Just to speak the words, `Our Father who art in
heaven,' would overcome her with such a manifestation
that she would become cold and almost
faint; and though she uttered much, yet she told
us that the divinest things she saw could not be
spoken. These things could not be fanaticism, for
she was a person of a singular evenness of nature,
and of great skill and discretion in temporal
matters, and of an exceeding humility, sweetness,
and quietness of disposition.”

“I have observed of late,” said Mrs. Scudder,
“that, in our praying circles, Mary seemed much
carried out of herself, and often as if she would
speak, and with difficulty holding herself back. I
have not urged her, because I thought it best to
wait till she should feel full liberty.”

“Therein you do rightly, Madam,” said the
Doctor; “but I am persuaded you will hear from
her yet.”

It came at length, the hour of utterance. And
one day, in a praying circle of the women of

the church, all were startled by the clear silver
tones of one who sat among them and spoke with
the unconscious simplicity of an angel child, calling
God her Father, and speaking of an ineffable
union in Christ, binding all things together in one,
and making all complete in Him. She spoke of a
love passing knowledge, — passing all love of lovers
or of mothers, — a love forever spending, yet
never spent, — a love ever pierced and bleeding,
yet ever constant and triumphant, rejoicing with
infinite joy to bear in its own body the sins and
sorrows of a universe, — conquering, victorious love,
rejoicing to endure, panting to give, and offering
its whole self with an infinite joyfulness for our
salvation. And when, kneeling, she poured out
her soul in prayer, her words seemed so many
winged angels, musical with unearthly harpings
of an untold blessedness. They who heard her had
the sensation of rising in the air, of feeling a celestial
light and warmth descending into their
souls; and when, rising, she stood silent and with
downcast drooping eyelids, there were tears in all
eyes, and a hush in all movements as she passed,
as if something celestial were passing out.

Miss Prissy came rushing homeward, to hold a
private congratulatory talk with the Doctor and
Mrs. Scudder, while Mary was tranquilly setting
the tea-table and cutting bread for supper.

“To see her now, certainly,” said Miss Prissy,

“moving round so thoughtful, not forgetting anything,
and doing everything so calm, you wouldn't
'a' thought it could be her that spoke those blessed
words and made that prayer! Well, certainly
that prayer seemed to take us all right up and
put us down in heaven! and when I opened my
eyes, and saw the roses and asparagus-bushes on
the manteltree-piece, I had to ask myself, `Where
have I been?' Oh, Miss Scudder, her afflictions
have been sanctified to her! — and really, when I
see her going on so, I feel she can't be long for
us. They say, dying grace is for dying hours;
and I'm sure this seems more like dying grace
than anything that I ever yet saw.”

“She is a precious gift,” said the Doctor; “let
us thank the Lord for his grace through her. She
has evidently had a manifestation of the Beloved,
and feedeth among the lilies (Canticles, vi. 3);
and we will not question the Lord's further dispensations
concerning her.”

“Certainly,” said Miss Prissy, briskly, “it's never
best to borrow trouble; `sufficient unto the day' is
enough, to be sure. — And now, Miss Scudder, I
thought I'd just take a look at that dove-colored
silk of yours to-night, to see what would have to
be done with it, because I must make every minute
tell; and you know I lose half a day every
week for the prayer-meeting. Though I ought not
to say I lose it, either; for I was telling Miss

General Wilcox I wouldn't give up that meeting
for bags and bags of gold. She wanted me to
come and sew for her one Wednesday, and says
I, `Miss Wilcox, I'm poor and have to live by
my work, but I a'n't so poor but what I have
some comforts, and I can't give up my prayer-meeting
for any money, — for you see, if one gets
a little lift there, it makes all the work go lighter,
— but then I have to be particular to save up
every scrap and end of time.”

Mrs. Scudder and Miss Prissy crossed the kitchen
and entered the bedroom, and soon had the dove-colored
silk under consideration.

“Well, Miss Scudder,” said Miss Prissy, after
mature investigation, “here's a broad hem, not cut
at all on the edge, as I see, and that might be
turned down, and so cut off the worn spot up by
the waist, — and then, if it is turned, it will look
every bit and grain as well as a new silk; — I'll
sit right down now and go to ripping. I put my
ripping-knife into my pocket when I put on this
dress to go to prayer-meeting, because, says I to
myself, there'll be something to do at Miss Scudder's
to-night. You just get an iron to the fire,
and we'll have it all ripped and pressed out before
dark.”

Miss Prissy seated herself at the open window
as cheery as a fresh apple-blossom, and began
busily plying her knife, looking at the garment she

was ripping with an astute air, as if she were
about to circumvent it into being a new dress by
some surprising act of legerdemain. Mrs. Scudder
walked to the looking-glass and began changing
her bonnet cap for a tea-table one.

Miss Prissy, after a while, commenced in a
mysterious tone.

“Miss Scudder, I know folks like me shouldn't
have their eyes open too wide, but then I can't
help noticing some things. Did you see the Doctor's
face when we was talking to him about
Mary? Why, he colored all up and the tears
came into his eyes. It's my belief that that blessed
man worships the ground she treads on. I don't
mean worships, either, — 'cause that would be
wicked, and he's too good a man to make a
graven image of anything, — but it's clear to see
that there a'n't anybody in the world like Mary to
him. I always did think so; but I used to think
Mary was such a little poppet — that she'd do
better for — Well, you know, I thought about
some younger man; — but, laws, now I see how
she rises up to be ahead of every body, and is so
kind of solemn-like. I can't but see the leadings
of Providence. What a minister's wife she'd be,
Miss Scudder! — why, all the ladies coming out of
prayer-meeting were speaking of it. You see, they
want the Doctor to get married; — it seems more
comfortable-like to have ministers married; one

feels more free to open their exercises of mind
and as Miss Deacon Twitchel said to me, — `If
the Lord had made a woman o' purpose, as he
did for Adam, he wouldn't have made her a bit
different from Mary Scudder.' Why, the oldest of
us would follow her lead, — 'cause she goes before
us without knowing it.”

“I feel that the Lord has greatly blessed me in
such a child,” said Mrs. Scudder, “and I feel disposed
to wait the leadings of Providence.”

“Just exactly,” said Miss Prissy, giving a shake
to her silk; “and as Miss Twitchel said, in this
case every providence seems to p'int. I felt dreadfully
for her along six months back; but now I
see how she's been brought out, I begin to see
that things are for the best, perhaps, after all. I
can't help feeling that Jim Marvyn is gone to
heaven, poor fellow! His father is a deacon, —
and such a good man! — and Jim, though he did
make a great laugh wherever he went, and sometimes
laughed where he hadn't ought to, was a
noble-hearted fellow. Now, to be sure, as the
Doctor says, `amiable instincts a'n't true holiness';
but then they are better than unamiable
ones, like Simeon Brown's. I do think, if that
man is a Christian, he is a dreadful ugly one; he
snapped me short up about my change, when he
settled with me last Tuesday; and if I hadn't felt
that it was a sinful rising, I should have told him

I'd never put foot in his house again; I'm glad,
for my part, he's gone out of our church. Now
Jim Marvyn was like a prince to poor people;
and I remember once his mother told him to settle
with me, and he gave me 'most double, and
wouldn't let me make change. `Confound it all,
Miss Prissy,' says he, `I wouldn't stitch as you
do from morning to night for double that money.'
Now I know we can't do anything to recommend
ourselves to the Lord, but then I can't help feeling
some sorts of folks must be by nature more
pleasing to Him than others. David was a man
after God's own heart, and he was a generous,
whole-souled fellow, like Jim Marvyn, though he
did get carried away by his spirits sometimes and
do wrong things; and so I hope the Lord saw fit
to make Jim one of the elect. We don't ever
know what God's grace has done for folks. I
think a great many are converted when we know
nothing about it, as Miss Twitchel told poor old
Miss Tyrel, who was mourning about her son, a
dreadful wild boy, who was killed falling from mast-head;
she says, that from the mast-head to the deck
was time enough for divine grace to do the work.”

“I have always had a trembling hope for poor
James,” said Mrs. Scudder, — “not on account of
any of his good deeds or amiable traits, because
election is without foresight of any good works, —
but I felt he was a child of the covenant, at

least by the father's side, and I hope the Lord
has heard his prayer. These are dark providences;
the world is full of them; and all we can do is
to have faith that the Lord will bring infinite
good out of finite evil, and make everything better
than if the evil had not happened. That's
what our good Doctor is always repeating; and
we must try to rejoice, in view of the happiness
of the universe, without considering whether we
or our friends are to be included in it or not.”

“Well, dear me!” said Miss Prissy, “I hope,
if that is necessary, it will please the Lord to
give it to me; for I don't seem to find any powers
in me to get up to it. But all's for the best,
at any rate, — and that's a comfort.”

Just at this moment Mary's clear voice at the
door announced that tea was on the table.

“Coming, this very minute,” said Miss Prissy,
bustling up and pulling off her spectacles. Then,
running across the room, she shut the door mysteriously,
and turned to Mrs. Scudder with the air
of an impending secret. Miss Prissy was subject
to sudden impulses of confidence, in which she
was so very cautious that not the thickest oak-plank
door seemed secure enough, and her voice
dropped to its lowest key. The most important
and critical words were entirely omitted, or supplied
by a knowing wink and a slight stamp of
the foot.

In this mood she now approached Mrs. Scudder,
and, holding up her hand on the door-side to
prevent consequences, if, after all, she should be
betrayed into a loud word, she said, “I thought
I'd just say, Miss Scudder, that, in case Mary
should — the Doctor, — in case, you know,
there should be a — in the house, you must
just contrive it so as to give me a month's notice,
so that I could give you a whole fortnight to fix
her up as such a good man's — ought to be.
Now I know how spiritually-minded our blessed
Doctor is; but, bless you, Ma'am, he's got eyes.
I tell you, Miss Scudder, these men, the best of
'em, feel what's what, though they don't know
much. I saw the Doctor look at Mary that night
I dressed her for the wedding-party. I tell you
he'd like to have his wife look pretty well, and
he'll get up some blessed text or other about it,
just as he did that night about being brought
unto the king in raiment of needle-work. That
is an encouraging thought to us sewing-women.

“But this thing was spoken of after the meeting.
Miss Twitchel and Miss Jones were talking
about it; and they all say that there would be
the best setting-out got for her that was ever seen
in Newport, if it should happen. Why, there's
reason in it. She ought to have at least two real
good India silks that will stand alone, — and you'll
see she'll have 'em too; you let me alone for that,

and I was thinking, as I lay awake last night, of
a new way of making up, that you will say is
just the sweetest that ever you did see. And
Miss Jones was saying that she hoped there
wouldn't anything happen without her knowing it,
because her husband's sister in Philadelphia has
sent her a new receipt for cake, and she has tried
it and it came out beautifully, and she says she'll
send some in.”

All the time that this stream was flowing, Mrs.
Scudder stood with the properly reserved air of a
discreet matron, who leaves all such matters to
Providence, and is not supposed unduly to anticipate
the future; and, in reply, she warmly pressed
Miss Prissy's hand, and remarked, that no one
could tell what a day might bring forth, — and
other general observations on the uncertainty of
mortal prospects, which form a becoming shield
when people do not wish to say more exactly what
they are thinking of.