r. Benny put his hands to his ears and ran from these terrible women.
For the moment they had both believed what they said, and yet old
Rosewarne's belief or unbelief had nothing to do with their hatred.
They gloated because he had been removed in the act of doing that which
would certainly impoverish them. They, neither less nor more than Mr. Sam
and Parson Endicott, made identical the will of God with their own wants.

Peter Benny as he crossed the ferry would have been uneasier and unhappier
had he understood Mr. Sam's parting words. He had not understood them
because he had never laid a scheme against man, woman, or child in his
life. Still he was uneasy and unhappy enough: first, because it hurt him
that anyone should speak as these old women had spoken of his dead master;
next, because he really felt sorry for them, and was carrying a letter to
their hurt; again because, in spite of Mr. Sam's reassuring words, he
could not shake off a sense of having exceeded his duties by signing that
letter without consulting the Board; and lastly, because in his confusion
he had forgotten his wife's state of health, and must break to the poor
woman, just arisen from bed and nursing a three-weeks'-old baby, that he
had invited a lodger. Now that he came to think of it, there was not a
spare bedroom in the house!

CHAPTER X.

NUNCEY.

The driver of the spring-cart was a brown-skinned, bright-eyed,
and exceedingly pretty damsel of eighteen or twenty, in a pink print
frock with a large crimson rose pinned in its bodice, and a pink
sun-bonnet, under the pent of which her dark hair curtained her
temples in two ample rippling bands.

"Why, hullo!" She reined up. Hester and the young sailor had fallen
apart to let her pass, and from her perch she stared down from one
side of the road to the other with a puzzled, jolly smile.
"Mornin', Tom!"

"Mornin', Nuncey!"

"Sakes alive! What be carryin' there 'pon your back?"

"School furnitcher."

The girl's eyes wandered from the bundle to Hester, and grew wide
with surmise.

"You don't mean to tell me you're the new schoolmistress!"

"Yes, I'm Hester Marvin."

"And I pictered 'ee a frump! But, my dear soul," she asked with
sudden solemnity, "what makes 'ee do it?"

"Do what?"

"Why, teach school? I al'ays reckoned that a trade for old persons--
toteling poor bodies, 'most past any use except to worrit the
children."

"And so 'tis," put in the young sailor ang