University of Virginia Library

23. CHAPTER XXIII.
WE TAKE A STEP UP IN THE WORLD.

ONE of my most vivid childish remembrances is the length of
our winters, the depth of the snows, the raging fury of the
storms that used to whirl over the old farm-house, shrieking and
piping and screaming round each angle and corner, and thundering
down the chimney in a way that used to threaten to topple
all down before it.

The one great central kitchen fire was the only means of
warming known in the house, and duly at nine o'clock every
night that was raked up, and all the family took their way to bed-chambers
that never knew a fire, where the very sheets and
blankets seemed so full of stinging cold air that they made one's
fingers tingle; and where, after getting into bed, there was a prolonged
shiver, until one's own internal heat-giving economy had
warmed through the whole icy mass. Delicate people had these
horrors ameliorated by the application of a brass warming-pan,
— an article of high respect and repute in those days, which
the modern conveniences for warmth in our houses have entirely
banished.

Then came the sleet storms, when the trees bent and creaked
under glittering mail of ice, and every sprig and spray of any
kind of vegetation was reproduced in sparkling crystals. These
were cold days par excellence, when everybody talked of the
weather as something exciting and tremendous, — when the cider
would freeze in the cellar, and the bread in the milk-room would
be like blocks of ice, — when not a drop of water could be got
out of the sealed well, and the very chimney-back over the
raked-up fire would be seen in the morning sparkling with a
rime of frost crystals. How the sledges used to squeak over the
hard snow, and the breath freeze on the hair, and beard, and
woolly comforters around the necks of the men, as one and

another brought in news of the wonderful, unheard-of excesses
of Jack Frost during the foregone night! There was always
something exhilarating about those extremely cold days, when a
very forest of logs, heaped up and burning in the great chimney,
could not warm the other side of the kitchen; and when Aunt
Lois, standing with her back so near the blaze as to be uncomfortably
warm, yet found her dish-towel freezing in her hand,
while she wiped the teacup drawn from the almost boiling water.
When things got to this point, we little folks were jolly. It was
an excitement, an intoxication; it filled life full of talk. People
froze the tips of their noses, their ears, their toes; we froze our
own. Whoever touched a door-latch incautiously, in the early
morning, received a skinning bite from Jack. The axe, the saw,
the hatchet, all the iron tools, in short, were possessed of a cold
devil ready to snap out at any incautious hand that meddled
with him. What ponderous stalactites of ice used to hang from
the eaves, and hung unmelted days, weeks, and months, dripping
a little, perhaps, towards noon, but hardening again as night came
on! and how long all this lasted! To us children it seemed
ages.

Then came April with here and there a sunny day. A
bluebird would be vaguely spoken of as having appeared.
Sam Lawson was usually the first to announce the fact, to the
sharp and sceptical contempt of his helpmeet.

On a shimmering April morning, with a half-mind to be sunshiny,
Sam saw Harry and myself trotting by his door, and
called to us for a bit of gossip.

“Lordy massy, boys, ain't it pleasant? Why, bless your soul
and body, I do believe spring 's a comin', though Hepsy she
won't believe it,” he said, as he leaned over the fence contemplatively,
with the axe in his hand. “I heard a bluebird last
week, Jake Marshall and me, when we was goin' over to Hopkinton
to see how Ike Saunders is. You know he is down with
the measles. I went over to offer to sit up with him. Where
be ye goin' this mornin'?”

“We 're going to the minister's. Grandfather is n't well, and
Lady Lothrop told us to come for some wine.”

“Jes' so,” said Sam. “Wal, now, he orter take something for
his stomach's sake, Scriptur' goes in for that. A little good hot
spiced wine, it 's jest the thing; and Ma'am Lothrop, she has the
very best. Why, some o' that 'ere wine o' hern come over from
England years ago, when her fust husband was living; and he
was a man that knew where to get his things. Wal, you must n't
stop to play; allers remember when you 're sent on errands not
to be a idlin' on the road.”

“Sam Lawson, will you split me that oven-wood or won't you?”
said a smart, cracking voice, as the door flew open and Hepsy's
thin face and snapping black eyes appeared, as she stood with
a weird, wiry, sharp-visaged baby exalted on one shoulder, while
in the other hand she shook a dish-cloth.

“Lordy massy, Hepsy, I 'm splittin' as fast as I can. There,
run along, boys; don't stop to play.”

We ran along, for, truth to say, the vision of Hepsy's sharp
features always quickened our speed, and we heard the loud,
high-pitched storm of matrimonial objurgation long after we had
left them behind.

Timidly we struck the great knocker, and with due respect
and modesty told our errand to the black doctor of divinity who
opened the door.

“I 'll speak to Missis,” he said; “but this 'ere 's Missis' great
day; it 's Good Friday, and she don't come out of her room the
whole blessed day.”

“But she sent word that we should come,” we both answered
in one voice.

“Well, you jest wait here while I go up and see,” — and the
important messenger creaked up stairs on tiptoe with infinite
precaution, and knocked at a chamber door.

Now there was something in all this reception that was vaguely
solemn and impressive to us. The minister's house of itself was
a dignified and august place. The minister was in our minds
great and greatly to be feared, and to be had in reverence of
them that were about him. The minister's wife was a very great
lady, who wore very stiff silks, and rode in a coach, and had no
end of unknown wealth at her control, so ran the village gossip.

And now what this mysterious Good Friday was, and why the
house was so still, and why the black doctor of divinity tiptoed
up stairs so stealthily, and knocked at her door so timidly, we
could not exactly conjecture; — it was all of a piece with the general
marvellous and supernatural character of the whole establishment.

We heard above the silvery well-bred tones that marked Lady
Lothrop.

“Tell the children to come up.”

We looked at each other, and each waited a moment for the
other to lead the way; finally I took the lead, and Harry followed.
We entered a bedroom shaded in a sombre gloom which
seemed to our childish eyes mysterious and impressive. There
were three windows in the room, but the shutters were closed,
and the only light that came in was from heart-shaped apertures
in each one. There was in one corner a tall, solemn-looking,
high-post bedstead with heavy crimson draperies. There were
heavy carved bureaus and chairs of black, solid oak.

At a table covered with dark cloth sat Lady Lothrop, dressed
entirely in black, with a great Book of Common Prayer spread
out before her. The light from the heart-shaped hole streamed
down upon this prayer-book in a sort of dusky shaft, and I
was the more struck and impressed because it was not an ordinary
volume, but a great folio bound in parchment, with heavy brass
knobs and clasps, printed in black-letter, of that identical old
edition first prepared in King Edward's time, and appointed to be
read in churches. Its very unusual and antique appearance
impressed me with a kind of awe.

There was at the other end of the room a tall, full-length mirror,
which, as we advanced, duplicated the whole scene, giving
back faithfully the image of the spare figure of Lady Lothrop,
her grave and serious face, and the strange old book over which
she seemed to be bending, with a dusky gleaming of crimson
draperies in the background.

“Come here, my children,” she said, as we hesitated; “how is
your grandfather?”

“He is not so well to-day; and grandmamma said —”

“Yes, yes; I know,” she said, with a gentle little wave of the
hand; “I desired that you might be sent for some wine; Pompey
shall have it ready for you. But tell me, little boys, do you
know what day this is?”

“It 's Friday, ma'am,” said I, innocently.

“Yes, my child; but do you know what Friday it is?” she said.

“No, ma'am,” said I, faintly.

“Well, my child, it is Good Friday; and do you know why it
is called Good Friday?”

“No, ma'am.”

“This is the day when our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ
died on the cross for our salvation; so we call it Good Friday.”

I must confess that these words struck me with a strange and
blank amazement. That there had been in this world a personage
called “Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,” I had learned from
the repetition of his name as the usual ending of prayers at
church and in the family; but the real literal fact that he had
lived on earth had never presented itself to me in any definite
form before; but this solemn and secluded room, this sombre
woman shut out from all the ordinary ways of the world, devoting
the day to lonely musing, gave to her words a strange
reality.

“When did he die?” I said.

“More than a thousand years ago,” she answered.

Insensibly Harry had pressed forward till he stood in the shaft
of light, which fell upon his golden curls, and his large blue eyes
now had that wide-open, absorbed expression with which he
always listened to anything of a religious nature, and, as if
speaking involuntarily, he said eagerly, “But he is not dead.
He is living; and we pray to him.”

“Why, yes, my son,” said Lady Lothrop, turning and looking
with pleased surprise, which became more admiring as she gazed,
— “yes, he rose from the dead.”

“I know. Mother told me all about that. Day after to-morrow
will be Easter day,” said Harry; “I remember.”

A bright flush of pleased expression passed over Lady Lothrop's
face as she said, “I am glad, my boy, that you at least have been

taught. Tell me, boys,” she said at last, graciously, “should
you like to go with me in my carriage to Easter Sunday, in
Boston?”

Had a good fairy offered to take us on the rainbow to the palace
of the sunset, the offer could not have seemed more unworldly
and dream-like. What Easter Sunday was I had not
the faintest idea, but I felt it to be something vague, strange, and
remotely suggestive of the supernatural.

Harry, however, stood the thing in the simple, solemn, gentlemanlike
way which was habitual with him.

“Thank you, ma'am, I shall be very happy, if grandmamma is
willing.”

It will be seen that Harry slid into the adoptive familiarity
which made my grandmother his, with the easy good faith of
childhood.

“Tell your grandmamma if she is willing I shall call for you
in my coach to-morrow,” — and we were graciously dismissed.

We ran home in all haste with our bottle of wine, and burst
into the kitchen, communicating our message both at once to
Aunt Lois and Aunt Keziah. The two women looked at each
other mysteriously; there was a slight flush on Aunt Lois's
keen, spare face.

“Well, if she 's a mind to do it, Kezzy, I don't see how we
can refuse.”

“Mother never would consent in the world,” said Aunt Keziah.

“Mother must,” said Aunt Lois, with decision. “We can't
afford to offend Lady Lothrop, with both these boys on our
hands. Besides, now father is sick, what a mercy to have 'em
both out of the house for a Sunday!”

Aunt Lois spoke this with an intensive earnestness that deepened
my already strong convictions that we boys were a daily
load upon her life, only endured by a high and protracted exercise
of Christian fortitude.

She rose and tapped briskly into the bedroom where my
grandmother was sitting reading by my grandfather's bed. I
heard her making some rapid statements in a subdued, imperative
tone. There were a few moments of a sort of suppressed,

earnest hum of conversation, and soon we heard sundry vehement
interjections from my grandmother, — “Good Friday! —
Easter! — pish, Lois! — don't tell me! — old cast-off rags of the
scarlet woman, — nothing else.

“Now, mother, how absurd!” I heard Aunt Lois say. “Who 's
talking about Rome? I 'm sure, if Dr. Lothrop can allow it, we
can. It 's all nonsense to talk so. We don't want to offend
our minister's wife; we must do the things that make for peace”;
and then the humming went on for a few moments more and
more earnestly, till finally we heard grandmother break out: —

“Well, well, have it your own way, Lois, — you always did
and always will, I suppose. Glad the boys 'll have a holiday, anyhow.
She means well, I dare say, — thinks she 's doing right.”

I must say that this was a favorite formula with which my
grandmother generally let herself down from the high platform
of her own sharply defined opinions to the level of Christian
charity with her neighbors.

“Who is the whore of Rome?” said Harry to me, confidentially,
when we had gone to our room to make ready for our
jaunt the next day.

“Don't you know?” said I. “Why, it 's the one that burnt
John Rogers, in the Catechism. I can show it to you”; and,
forthwith producing from my small stock of books my New England
Primer, I called his attention to the picture of Mr. John
Rogers in gown and bands, standing in the midst of a brisk and
voluminous coil of fire and smoke, over which an executioner,
with a supernatural broadaxe upon his shoulders, seemed to preside
with grim satisfaction. There was a woman with a baby in
her arms and nine children at her side, who stood in a row, each
head being just a step lower than the preceding, so that they
made a regular flight of stairs. The artist had represented the
mother and all the children with a sort of round bundle on each
of their heads, of about the same size as the head itself, — a

thing which I always interpreted as a further device of the
enemy in putting stones on their heads to crush them down;
and I pointed it out to Harry as an aggravating feature of the
martyrdom.

“Did the whore of Rome do that?” said Harry, after a few
moments' reflection.

“Yes, she did, and it tells about it in the poetry which he
wrote here to his children the night before his execution”; and
forthwith I proceeded to read to Harry that whole poetical production,
delighted to find a gap in his education which I was
competent to fill. We were both wrought up into a highly Protestant
state by reading this.

“Horace,” said Harry, timidly, “she would n't like such things,
would she? she is such a good woman.”

“What, Lady Lothrop? of course she 's a good woman; else
she would n't be our minister's wife.”

“What was grandma talking about?” said Harry.

“O, I don't know; grandmother talks about a great many
things,” said I. “At any rate, we shall see Boston, and I 've
always wanted to see Boston. Only think, Harry, we shall go in
a coach!”

This projected tour to Boston was a glorification of us children
in the eyes of the whole family. To go, on the humblest of
terms, to Boston, — but to be taken thither in Lady Lothrop's
coach, to be trotted in magnificently behind her fat pair of carriage-horses,
— that was a good fortune second only to translation.

Boston lay at an easy three hours' ride from Oldtown, and Lady
Lothrop had signified to my grandmother that we were to be
called for soon after dinner. We were to spend the night and
the Sunday following at the house of Lady Lothrop's mother, who
still kept the old family mansion at the north end, and Lady
Lothrop was graciously pleased to add that she would keep the
children over Easter Monday, to show them Boston. Faithful
old soul, she never omitted the opportunity of reminding the
gainsaying community among whom her lot was cast of the solemn
days of her church and for one I have remembered Easter
Sunday and Monday to this day.

Our good fortune received its crowning stroke in our eyes
when, running over to Miss Mehitable's with the news, we found
that Lady Lothrop had considerately included Tina in the invitation.

“Well, she must like children better than I do,” was Aunt
Lois's comment upon the fact, when we announced it. “Now,
boys, mind and behave yourselves like young gentlemen,” she
added, “for you are going to one of the oldest families of Boston,
among real genteel people.”

“They 're Tories, Lois,” put in Aunt Keziah, apprehensively.

“Well, what of that? that thing 's over and gone now,” said
Aunt Lois, “and nobody lays it up against the Kitterys, and
everybody knows they were in the very first circles in Boston
before the war, and connected with the highest people in England,
so it was quite natural they should be Tories.”

“I should n't wonder if Lady Widgery should be there,” said
Aunt Keziah, musingly, as she twitched her yarn; “she always
used to come to Boston about this time o' the year.”

“Very likely she will,” said my mother. “What relation is she
to Lady Lothrop?”

“Why, bless me, don't you know?” said Aunt Lois. “Why,
she was Polly Steadman, and sister to old Ma'am Kittery's husband's
first wife. She was second wife to Sir Thomas; his first
wife was one of the Keatons of Penshurst, in England; she died
while Sir Thomas was in the custom-house; she was a poor,
sickly thing. Polly was a great beauty in her day. People said
he admired her rather too much before his wife died, but I don't
know how that was.”

“I wonder what folks want to say such things for,” quoth my
grandmother. “I hate backbiters, for my part.”

“We are n't backbiting, mother. I only said how the story ran.
It was years ago, and poor Sir Thomas is in his grave long ago.”

“Then you might let him rest there,” said my grandmother.
“Lady Widgery was a pleasant-spoken woman, I remember.”

“She 's quite an invalid now, I heard,” said Aunt Lois. “Our
Bill was calling at the Kitterys' the other day, and Miss Deborah
Kittery spoke of expecting Lady Widgery. The Kitterys have

been very polite to Bill; they 've invited him there to dinner
once or twice this winter. That was one reason why I thought we
ought to be careful how we treat Lady Lothrop's invitation. It 's
entirely through her influence that Bill gets these attentions.”

“I don't know about their being the best thing for him,” said
my grandmother, doubtfully.

“Mother, how can you talk so? What can be better than
for a young man to have the run of good families in Boston?”
said Aunt Lois.

“I 'd rather see him have intimacy with one godly minister
of old times,” said my grandmother.

“Well, that 's what Bill is n't likely to do,” quoth Aunt Lois,
with a slight shade of impatience. “We must take boys as we
find 'em.”

“I have n't anything against Tories or Episcopalians,” said
my grandmother; “but they ain't our sort of folks. I dare say
they mean as well as they know how.”

“Miss Mehitable visits the Kitterys when she is in Boston,”
said Aunt Lois, “and thinks everything of them. She says
that Deborah Kittery is a very smart, intelligent woman, — a
woman of a very strong mind.”

“I dare say they 're well enough,” said my grandmother.
“I 'm sure I wish 'em well with all my heart.”

“Now, Horace,” said Aunt Lois, “be careful you don't sniff,
and be sure and wipe your shoes on the mat when you come in,
and never on any account speak a word unless you are spoken to.
Little boys should be seen and not heard; and be very careful
you never touch anything you see. It is very good of Lady
Lothrop to be willing to take all the trouble of having you with
her, and you must make her just as little as possible.”

I mentally resolved to reduce myself to a nonentity, to go
out of existence, as it were, to be nobody and nowhere, if only
I might escape making trouble.

“As to Harry, he is always a good, quiet boy, and never
touches things, or forgets to wipe his shoes,” said my aunt.
“I 'm sure he will behave himself.”

My mother colored slightly at this undisguised partiality for

Harry, but she was too much under Aunt Lois's discipline to
venture a word.

“Lordy massy, Mis' Badger, how do ye all do?” said Sam
Lawson, this moment appearing at the kitchen door. “I saw
your winders so bright, I thought I 'd jest look in and ask after
the Deacon. I ben into Miss Mehitable's, and there 's Polly, she
telled me about the chillen goin' to Boston to-morrow. Tiny,
she 's jest flying round and round like a lightning-bug, most out
of her head, she 's so tickled; and Polly, she was a i'nin' up her
white aprons to get her up smart. Polly, she says it 's all pagan
flummery about Easter, but she 's glad the chillen are goin' to
have the holiday.” And with this Sam Lawson seated himself
on his usual evening roost in the corner, next to black Cæsar,
and we both came and stood by his knee.

“Wal, boys, now you 're goin' among real, old-fashioned gentility.
Them Kitterys used to hold their heads 'mazin' high afore
the war, and they 've managed by hook and crook to hold on to
most what they got, and now by-gones is by-gones. But I believe
they don't go out much, or go into company. Old Ma'am
Kittery, she 's kind o' broke up about her son that was killed at
the Delaware.”

“Fighting on the wrong side, poor woman,” said my grandmother.
“Well, I s'pose he thought he was doing right.”

“Yes, yes,” said Sam, “there 's all sorts o' folks go to make
up a world, and, lordy massy, we must n't be hard on nobody;
can't 'spect everybody to be right all round; it 's what I tell
Polly when she sniffs at Lady Lothrop keepin' Christmas and
Easter and sich. `Lordy massy, Polly,' says I, `if she reads
her Bible, and 's good to the poor, and don't speak evil o' nobody,
why, let her have her Easter; what 's the harm on 't?' But, lordy
massy bless your soul an' body! there 's no kind o' use talkin' to
Polly. She fumed away there, over her i'nin' table; she
did n't believe in folks that read their prayers out o' books; and
then she hed it all over about them tew thousan' ministers that
was all turned out o' the church in one day in old King Charles's
time. Now, raily, Mis' Badger, I don't see why Lady Lothrop
should be held 'sponsible for that are, if she is 'Piscopalian.”

“Well, well,” said my grandmother; “they did turn out the
very best men in England, but the Lord took 'em for seed to
plant America with. But no wonder we feel it: burnt children
dread the fire. I 've nothing against Lady Lothrop, and I don't
wish evil to the Episcopalians nor to the Tories. There 's good
folks among 'em all, and `the Lord knoweth them that are his.'
But I do hope, Horace, that, when you get to Boston, you will go
out on to Copps Hill and see the graves of the Saints. There
are the men that I want my children to remember. You
come here, and let me read you about them in my `Magnaly'[1]
here.” And with this my grandmother produced her well-worn
copy; and, to say the truth, we were never tired of hearing what
there was in it. What legends, wonderful and stirring, of the
solemn old forest life, — of fights with the Indians, and thrilling
adventures, and captivities, and distresses, — of encounters with
panthers and serpents, and other wild beasts, which made our
very hair stand on end! Then there were the weird witch-stories,
so wonderfully attested; and how Mr. Peter So-and-so
did visibly see, when crossing a river, a cat's head swimming in
front of the boat, and the tail of the same following behind; and
how worthy people had been badgered and harassed by a sudden
friskiness in all their household belongings, in a manner not unknown
in our modern days. Of all these fascinating legends my
grandmother was a willing communicator, and had, to match them,
numbers of corresponding ones from her own personal observation
and experience; and sometimes Sam Lawson would chime
in with long-winded legends, which, being told by flickering fire-light,
with the wind rumbling and tumbling down the great chimney,
or shrieking and yelling and piping around every corner of
the house, like an army of fiends trying with tooth and claw to
get in upon us, had power to send cold chills down our backs in
the most charming manner.

For my part, I had not the slightest fear of the supernatural;
it was to me only a delightful stimulant, just crisping the surface
of my mind with a pleasing horror. I had not any doubt of the
stories of apparitions related by Dr. Cotton, because I had seen

so many of them myself; and I did not doubt that many of the
witnesses who testified in these cases really did see what they
said they saw, as plainly as I had seen similar appearances.
The consideration of the fact that there really are people in whose
lives such phenomena are of frequent occurrence seems to have
been entirely left out of the minds of those who have endeavored
to explain that dark passage in our history.

In my maturer years I looked upon this peculiarity as something
resulting from a physical idiosyncrasy, and I have supposed
that such affections may become at times epidemics in communities,
as well as any other affection of the brain and nervous system.
Whether the things thus discerned have an objective reality
or not, has been one of those questions at which, all my
life, the interrogation point has stood unerased.

On this evening, however, my grandmother thought fit to
edify us by copious extracts from “The Second Part, entituled
Sepher-Jearim, i. e. Liber Deum Timentium; or, Dead Abels; —
yet speaking and spoken of.”

The lives of several of these “Dead Abels” were her favorite
reading, and to-night she designed especially to fortify our minds
with their biographies; so she gave us short dips and extracts
here and there from several of them, as, for example: “Janus
Nov.-Anglicus; or, The Life of Mr. Samuel Higginson”; —
“Cadmus Americanus; or, Life of Mr. Charles Chauncey”; —
“Cygnea Cantio; or, The Death of Mr. John Avery”; — “Fulgentius;
or, The Life of Mr. Richard Mather”; and “Elisha's
Bones; or, Life of Mr. Henry Whitefield.”

These Latin titles stimulated my imagination like the sound of
a trumpet, and I looked them out diligently in my father's great
dictionary, and sometimes astonished my grandmother by telling
her what they meant.

In fact, I was sent to bed that night thoroughly fortified
against all seductions of the gay and worldly society into which
I was about to be precipitated; and my reader will see that there
was need enough of this preparation.

All these various conversations in regard to differences of religion
went on before us children with the freedom with which

older people generally allow themselves to go on in the presence
of the little non-combatants of life. In those days, when utter
silence and reserve in the presence of elders was so forcibly inculcated
as one of the leading virtues of childhood, there was little
calculation made for the effect of such words on the childish
mind. With me it was a perfect hazy mist of wonder and bewilderment;
and I went to sleep and dreamed that John Rogers was
burning Lady Lothrop at the stake, and Polly, as executioner,
presided with a great broadaxe over her shoulder, while grandmother,
with nine small children, all with stone bundles on their
heads, assisted at the ceremony.

Our ride to Boston was performed in a most proper and edifying
manner. Lady Lothrop sat erect and gracious on the back
seat, and placed Harry, for whom she seemed to have conceived a
special affection, by her side. Tina was perched on the knee of
my lady's maid, a starched, prim woman who had grown up and
dried in all the most sacred and sanctified essences of genteel
propriety. She was the very crispness of old-time decorum,
brought up to order herself lowly and reverently to all her betters,
and with a secret conviction that, aside from Lady Lothrop,
the whole of the Oldtown population were rather low Dissenters,
whom she was required by the rules of Christian propriety to be
kind to. To her master, as having been honored with the august
favor of her mistress's hand, she looked up with respect,
but her highest mark of approbation was in the oft-repeated burst
which came from her heart in moments of confidential enthusiasm,
— “Ah, ma'am, depend upon it, master is a churchman in
his heart. If 'e 'ad only 'ad the good fortune to be born in
Hengland, 'e would 'ave been a bishop!”

Tina had been talked to and schooled rigorously by Miss
Mehitable as to propriety of manner during this ride; and, as
Miss Mehitable well knew what a chatterbox she was, she exacted
from her a solemn promise that she would only speak when she
was spoken to. Being perched in Mrs. Margery's lap, she felt
still further the stringent and binding power of that atmosphere
of frosty decorum which encircled this immaculate waiting-maid.
A more well-bred, inoffensive, reverential little trio never surrounded

a lady patroness; and as Lady Lothrop was not much
of a talker, and, being a childless woman, had none of those
little arts of drawing out children which the maternal instinct
alone teaches, our ride, though undoubtedly a matter of great enjoyment,
was an enjoyment of a serious and even awful character.
Lady Lothrop addressed a few kind inquiries to each one of us
in turn, to which we each of us replied, and then the conversation
fell into the hands of Mrs. Margery, and consisted mainly
in precise details as to where and how she had packed her
mistress's Sunday cap and velvet dress; in doing which she
evinced the great fluency and fertility of language with which
women of her class are gifted on the one subject of their souls.
Mrs. Margery felt as if the Sunday cap of the only supporter of
the true Church in the dark and heathen parish of Oldtown was
a subject not to be lightly or unadvisedly considered; and, there
fore, she told at great length how she had intended to pack it
first all together, — how she had altered her mind and taken off
the bow, and packed that in a little box by itself, and laid the
strings out flat in the box, — what difficulties had met her in folding
the velvet dress, — and how she had at first laid it on top of
the trunk, but had decided at last that the black lutestring might
go on top of that, because it was so much lighter, &c., &c., &c.

Lady Lothrop was so much accustomed to this species of
monologue, that it is quite doubtful if she heard a word of it;
but poor Tina, who felt within herself whole worlds of things to
say, from the various objects upon the road, of which she was
dying to talk and ask questions, wriggled and twisted upon Mrs.
Margery's knee, and finally gave utterance to her pent-up feelings
in deep sighs.

“What 's the matter, little dear?” said Lady Lothrop.

“O dear! I was just wishing I could go to church.”

“Well, you are going to-morrow, dear.”

“I just wish I could go now to say one prayer.”

“And what is that, my dear?”

“I just want to say, `O Lord, open thou my lips,' said Tina,
with effusion.

Lady Lothrop smiled with an air of innocent surprise, and
Mrs. Margery winked over the little head.

“I 'm so tired of not talking!” said Tina, pathetically; “but I
promised Miss Mehitable I would n't speak unless I was spoken
to,” she added, with an air of virtuous resolution.

“Why, my little dear, you may talk,” said Lady Lothrop. “It
won't disturb me at all. Tell us now about anything that interests
you.”

“O, thank you ever so much,” said Tina; and from this
moment, as a little elfin butterfly bursts from a cold, gray
chrysalis, Tina rattled and chattered and sparkled, and went on
with verve and gusto that quite waked us all up. Lady Lothrop
and Mrs. Margery soon found themselves laughing with a
heartiness which surprised themselves; and, the icy chains of
silence being once broken, we all talked, almost forgetting in
whose presence we were. Lady Lothrop looked from one to
another in a sort of pleased and innocent surprise. Her still,
childless, decorous life covered and concealed many mute feminine
instincts which now rose at the voice and touch of childhood;
and sometimes in the course of our gambols she would sigh,
perhaps thinking of her own childless hearth.