is jest about as good as another, when they's all so kind o' comfortable
and nice. Wal, about Huldy,--as I was a sayin'. She was jest as
handsome a gal to look at as a feller could have; and I think a nice,
well-behaved young gal in the singers' seat of a Sunday is a means o'
grace: it's sort o' drawin' to the unregenerate, you know. Why, boys, in
them days, I've walked ten miles over to Sherburne of a Sunday mornin',
jest to play the bass-viol in the same singers' seat with Huldy. She was
very much respected, Huldy was; and, when she went out to tailorin', she
was allers bespoke six months ahead, and sent for in waggins up and down
for ten miles round; for the young fellers was allers 'mazin' anxious to
be sent after Huldy, and was quite free to offer to go for her. Wal,
after Mis' Carry! died, Huldy got to be sort o' housekeeper at the
minister's, and saw to every thing, and did every thing: so that there
warn't a pin out o' the way.

"But you know how 'tis in parishes: there allers is women that thinks
the minister's affairs belongs to them, and they ought to have the
rulin' and guidin' of 'em; and, if a minister's wife dies, there's folks
that allers has their eyes open on providences,--lookin' out who's to be
the next one.

"Now, there was Mis' Amaziah Pipperidge, a widder with snappin' black
eyes, and a hook nose,--kind o' like a hawk; and she was one o' them
up-and-down commandin' sort o' women, that feel that they have a call to
be seein' to every thing that goes on in the parish, and 'specially to
the minister.

"Folks did say that Mis' Pipperidge sort o' sot her eye on the parson
for herself: wal, now that 'are might a been, or it might not. Some
folks thought it was a very suitable connection. You see she hed a good
property of her own, right nigh to the minister's lot, and was allers
kind o' active and busy; so takin' one thing with another, I shouldn't
wonder if Mis' Pipperidge should a thought that Providence p'inted that
way. At any rate, she went up to Deakin Blod-gett's wife, and they two
sort o' put their heads together a mournin' and condolin' about the way
things was likely to go on at the minister's now Mis' Carryl was dead.
Ye see, the parson's wife, she was one of them women who hed their eyes
everywhere and on every thing. She was a little thin woman, but tough as
Inger rubber, and smart as a steel trap; and there warn't a hen laid an
egg, or cackled, but Mis' Carryl was right there to see ab