omma in its place, and full of
gratulations. Her commas were _always_ in place; so were her stops of
all kinds: her precision was something marvellous. This precision had
enabled her to manage the little property which had been left her in
such a way as to maintain always about her establishment an air of
well-ordered thrift. She concealed adroitly all the shifts--if there
were any--by which she avoided the reproach of seeming poor.

In person she was not unlike her father, the Major,--tall, erect, with a
dignified bearing, and so trim a figure, and so elastic a step even at
her years, as would have provoked an inquisitive follower to catch sight
of the face. This was by no means attractive. Her features were thin,
her nose unduly prominent; and both eye and mouth, though well formed,
carried about them a kind of hard positiveness that would have
challenged respect, perhaps, but no warmer feeling. Two little curls
were flattened upon either temple; and her neck-tie, dress, gloves, hat,
were always most neatly arranged, and ordered with the same precision
that governed all her action. In the town of Canterbury she was an
institution. Her charities and all her religious observances were
methodical, and never omitted. Her whole life, indeed, was a discipline.
Without any great love for children, she still had her Bible-class; and
it was rare that the weather or any other cause forbade attendance upon
its duties. Nor was there one of the little ones who listened to that
clear, sharp, metallic voice of hers but stood in awe of her; not one
that could say she was unkind; not one who had ever bestowed a childish
gift upon her,--such little gifts as children love to heap on those who
have found the way to their hearts.

Sentiment had never been effusive in her; and it was now limited to
quick sparkles, that sometimes flashed into a page of her reading. As
regarded the serious question of marriage, implying a home, position,
the married dignities, it had rarely disturbed her; and now her
imaginative forecast did not grapple it with any vigor or longing. If,
indeed, it had been possible that a man of high standing, character,
cultivation,--equal, in short, to the Johnses in every way,--should woo
her with pertinacity, she might have been disposed to yield a dignified
assent, but not unless he could be made to understand and adequately
appreciate the immense favor she was conferring. In short, the suitor
who could abide and admit