attached to the house; not the same boy, but a Boy
dynasty, for as soon as one went another came, who ate a great deal--a
crime in Hepsey's eyes--and whose general duty was to carry armfuls of
wood, pails of milk, or swill, and to shut doors.

We had many visitors. Though father had no time to devote to guests,
he was continually inviting people for us to entertain, and his
invitations were taken as a matter of course, and finally for granted.
A rich Morgeson was a new feature in the family annals, and distant
relations improved the advantage offered them by coming to spend the
summer with us, because their own houses were too hot, or the winter,
because they were too cold! Infirm old ladies, who were not related to
us, but who had nowhere else to visit, came. As his business extended,
our visiting list extended. The captains of his ships whose homes were
elsewhere brought their wives to be inconsolable with us after their
departure on their voyages. We had ministers often, who always quarter
at the best houses, and chance visitors to dinner and supper, who made
our house a way-station. There was but small opportunity to cultivate
family affinities; they were forever disturbed. Somebody was always
sitting in the laps of our Lares and Penates. Another class of
visitors deserving notice were those who preferred to occupy the
kitchen and back chambers, humbly proud and bashfully arrogant people,
who kept their hats and bonnets by them, and small bundles, to delude
themselves and us with the idea that they "had not come to stay, and
had no occasion for any attention." These people criticised us
with insinuating severity, and proposed amendments with unrelenting
affability. To this class Veronica was most attracted--it repelled me;
consequently she was petted, and I was amiably sneered at.

This period of our family life has left small impression of dramatic
interest. There was no development of the sentiments, no betrayal of
the fluctuations of the passions which must have existed. There was
no accident to reveal, no coincidence to surprise us. Hidden among
the Powers That Be, which rule New England, lurks the Deity of the
Illicit. This Deity never obtained sovereignty in the atmosphere
where the Morgesons lived. Instead of the impression which my
after-experience suggests to me to seek, I recall arrivals and
departures, an eternal smell of cookery, a perpetual changing of beds,
and the small talk of vacant minds.

Desp