dogs" that they were for ever meeting, was nothing to
this _going round the church!_

But to return to the cottage, from which the pretty, rural trait of
its standing in its unfenced green door-yard led me away to notice the
same sort of rustic beauty where the church stood. We did not stop to
knock at the outside door,--for Aunt Molly was very deaf, and if we
had knocked our little knuckles off she would not have heard us,--but
went in, and, passing along the passage, rapped at the door of the
"common room," half sitting-room, half kitchen, and were
admitted. Those who saw her for the first time, whether children or
grown people, were generally afraid of her; for her voice,
unmodulated, of course, by the ear, was naturally harsh, strong, and
high-toned; and the sort of half laugh, half growl, that she uttered
when pleased, might have suggested to an imaginative child the howl of
a wolf. She had very large features, and sharp, penetrating black
eyes, shaded by long, gray lashes, and surmounted by thick, bushy,
gray eyebrows. I think that when she was scolding the school-boys,
with those eyes fiercely "glowering" at them from under the shaggy
gray thatch, she must have appeared to those who in their learned page
had got as far as the Furies, like a living illustration of classic
lore. Her cap and the make of her dress were peculiar, and suggestive
of those days before, and at the time of, the Revolution, of which she
loved to speak.

But we, her little favorites, were not afraid of her. To go into her
garden in summer, and eat currants, larger and sweeter than any we
found at home,--to look up at the enormous old damson-tree, when it
was white with blossoms, and the rich honey-comb smell was diffused
over the whole garden,--was a pleasant little excursion to us. She
took great care and pains to save the plums from the plundering boys,
because it was the only real damson there was anywhere in the
neighborhood, and she found a ready sale for them, for preserves. She
seemed to think that the _real damsons_ went out with the _real
gentry_ of the olden time; and perhaps they did, _as_ damsons, though,
for aught I know, they may figure now in our fruit catalogues as "The
Duke of Argyle's New Seedling Acidulated Drop of Damascus,"--which
would be something like a translation of Damson into the modern
terminology.

But more pleasant still was it to go into Aunt Molly's "best room."
The walls she had papered herself, with cu