door, Joe." He brightened, but before he could comply
with my request Temperance flung it wide, for the purpose of making a
survey of the clouds and guessing at to-morrow's weather. His retreat
was precipitate.

"Oh ho," said Temperance, "a feller came home with you. We shall have
somebody sitting up a-Thursday nights, I reckon, before long."

"Nonsense with your Thursday nights."

"Everybody is just alike. We shall have rain, see if we don't; rain or
no rain, I'll whitewash to-morrow."

Poor Joe! That night ended my first sentiment. He died with the
measles in less than a month.

"I wish," said Temperance, who was spelling over a newspaper, "that
Dr. Snell would come in before the plum-cake is gone, that Hepsey made
last. The old dear loves it; he is always hungry. I candidly believe
Mis Grossman keeps him short."

I expected that Temperance would break out then about Joe; but she
never mentioned him, except to tell me that she had heard of his
death. She did not whitewash the next day, for Charles came down with
the measles, and was tended by her with a fretful tenderness. Veronica
was seized soon after, and then Arthur, and then I had them. Veronica
was the worst patient. When her room was darkened she got out of bed,
tore down the quilt that was fastened to the window, and broke three
panes of glass before she could be captured and taken back. The quilt
was not put up again, however. She cried with anger, unless her hands
were continually washed with lavender water, and made little pellets
of cotton which she stuffed in her ears and nose, so that she might
not hear or smell.

I went to Dr. Snell's as soon as I was able. He was in his bedchamber,
writing a sermon on fine note-paper, and had disarranged the wide
ruffles of his shirt so that he looked like a mildly angry turkey.
Thrusting his spectacles up into the roots of his hair, he rose,
and led me into a large room adjoining his bedroom, which contained
nothing but tall bookcases, threw open the doors of one, pushed up a
little ladder before it, for me to mount to a row of volumes bound in
calf, whose backs were labeled "British Classics." "There," he said,
"you will find 'The Spectator,'" and trotted back to his sermon, with
his pen in his mouth. I examined the books, and selected Tom Jones and
Goldsmith's Plays to take home. From that time I grazed at pleasure in
his oddly assorted library, ranging from "The Gentleman's Magazine"
to a file of the "Bost