bush where she
was picking; "but we can't agree on that p'int, and it's no use. I
don't say nothing. You might's well ask the moon to face about and
travel the other way as to try to change Miss H'ratia's mind. I ain't
going to argue it with her: it ain't my place; I know that as well as
anybody. She'd run her feet off for the minister's folks any day; and,
though I do say he's a fair preacher, they haven't got a speck o'
consideration nor fac'lty; they think the world was made for them, but
I think likely they'll find out it wasn't; most folks do. When he
first was settled here, I had a fit o' sickness, and he come to see me
when I was getting over the worst of it. He did the best he could, I
always took it very kind of him; but he made a prayer, and he kep'
sayin' 'this aged handmaid,' I should think, a dozen times. Aged
handmaid!" said Melissa scornfully: "I don't call myself aged yet, and
that was more than ten years ago. I never made pretensions to being
younger than I am; but you'd 'a' thought I was a topplin' old creatur'
going on a hundred."

Nelly laughed; Melissa looked cross, and moved on to the next
currant-bush. "So that's why you don't like the minister?" But the
question did not seem to please.

"I hope I never should be set against a preacher by such as that." And
Nelly hastened to change the subject; but there was to be a last word:
"I like to see a minister that's solid minister right straight
through, not one of these veneered folks. But old Parson Croden spoilt
me for setting under any other preaching."

"I wonder," said Nelly, after a little, "if Cousin Horatia has any
picture of that Captain Carrick."

"He wasn't captain," said Melissa. "I never heard that it was any more
than they talked of giving him a ship next voyage."

"And you never saw him? He never came here to see her?"

"Bless you, no! She met with him at Salem, where she was spending the
winter, and he went right away to sea. I've heard a good deal more
about it of late years than I ever did at the time. I suppose the
Salem folks talked about it enough. All I know is, there was other
good matches that offered to her since, and couldn't get her; and I
suppose it was on account of her heart's being buried in the deep with
him." And this unexpected bit of sentiment, spoken in Melissa's
grummest tone, seemed so funny to her young companion, that she bent
very low to pick from a currant-twig close to the ground, and could
not ask any