complished an important duty. It is the very house
we just now saw with the ponderous ogees over its front, the balustrade
upon its roof, and the dame in spectacles at the window: this latter
being the spinster, Miss Meacham, elder sister to the wife of the
Squire, and taking upon herself, with active zeal and a neatness that
knew no bounds, the office of housekeeper. This was rendered necessary
in a manner by the engagement of Mrs. Elderkin with a group of young
flax-haired children, and periodic threats of addition to the same. The
hospitalities of the house were fully established, and no state official
could visit the town without hearty invitation to the Squire's table.
The spinster received the announcement of the minister's coming with a
quiet gravity, and betook herself to the needed preparation.

VI.

Mr. Johns, meantime, when he had left the Handby parlor, where we saw
him last, and was fairly upon the stair, had replied to the suggestion
of his little wife about the sermon on Revelations with a fugitive kiss,
and said, "I will think of it, Rachel."

And he did think of it,--thought of it so well, that he left the
beautiful sermon in his drawer, and took with him a couple of strong
doctrinal discourses, upon the private hearing of which his charming
wife had commented by dropping asleep (poor thing!) in her chair.

But the strong men and women of Ashfield relished them better. There was
a sermon for the morning on "Regeneration the work only of grace"; and
another for the afternoon, on the outer leaf of which was written, in
the parson's bold hand, "The doctrine of Election compatible with the
infinite goodness of God." It is hard to say which of the two was the
better, or which commended itself most to the church full of people who
listened. Deacon Tourtelot,--a short, wiry man, with reddish whiskers
brushed primly forward,--sitting under the very droppings of the pulpit,
with painful erectness, and listening grimly throughout, was inclined to
the sermon of the morning. Dame Tourtelot, who overtopped her husband by
half a head, and from her great scoop hat, trimmed with green, kept her
keen eyes fastened intently upon the minister on trial, was enlisted in
the same belief, until she heard the Deacon's timid expression of
preference, when she pounced upon him, and declared for the Election
discourse. It was not her way to allow him to enjoy an opinion of his
own getting. Miss Almira, their only child, and