dear," said Miss Honora, rather doubtfully; "I have
always been public-spirited; but then, we always have guests in summer,
and I am growing old. I should not care to enlarge my acquaintance to
any great extent." Miss Honora and Mrs. Dent had lived gay lives in
their younger days, and were interested and connected with the outside
world more than any of our Deephaven friends; but they were quite
contented to stay in their own house, with their books and letters and
knitting, and they carefully read Littell and "the new magazine," as
they called the Atlantic.

The Carews were very intimate with the minister and his sister, and
there were one or two others who belonged to this set. There was Mr.
Joshua Dorsey, who wore his hair in a queue, was very deaf, and carried
a ponderous cane which had belonged to his venerated father,--a much
taller man than he. He was polite to Kate and me, but we never knew him
much. He went to play whist with the Carews every Monday evening, and
commonly went out fishing once a week. He had begun the practice of law,
but he had lost his hearing, and at the same time his lady-love had
inconsiderately fallen in love with somebody else; after which he
retired from active business life. He had a fine library, which he
invited us to examine. He had many new books, but they looked shockingly
overdressed, in their fresher bindings, beside the old brown volumes of
essays and sermons, and lighter works in many-volume editions.

A prominent link in society was Widow Tully, who had been the
much-respected housekeeper of old Captain Manning for forty years. When
he died he left her the use of his house and family pew, besides an
annuity. The existence of Mr. Tully seemed to be a myth. During the
first of his widow's residence in town she had been much affected when
obliged to speak of him, and always represented herself as having seen
better days and as being highly connected. But she was apt to be
ungrammatical when excited, and there was a whispered tradition that
she used to keep a toll-bridge in a town in Connecticut; though the
mystery of her previous state of existence will probably never be
solved. She wore mourning for the captain which would have befitted his
widow, and patronized the townspeople conspicuously, while she herself
was treated with much condescension by the Carews and Lorimers. She
occupied, on the whole, much the same position that Mrs. Betty Barker
did in Cranford. And, indeed, K