closet door, and reseated
herself, wiping her mouth with her apron as she did so. This change of
posture brought her into full view of the stairs leading to the loft
above, which humble place, under the roof, the clergyman used for a
study when he wished to be _very much_ retired. On the stairs,
descending with solemn step and slow, was Bub, with the minister's old
hat on, which he kept above his eyes by one chubby hand, and the
minister's steel-bowed glasses resting on his nose, and the good man's
dressing-gown trailing magnificently behind. Bub's manner showed that
he felt his consequence much increased by his clerical outfit, and
the benignant gravity of his face was edifying to behold.

"Goodness gracious!" exclaimed the old lady; "what on airth you up to,
you imp o' Satan? Can't you berhave in the minister's house?" and,
seizing the urchin as he landed, she only ceased shaking him as the
spectacles dropped to the floor.

This reception was wholly unexpected to poor Bub, and, as she relieved
him of his ministerial vestments, he sobbed indignantly,--

"Now Bub go wite away, and never come back no more!" and, opening the
door, he marched resolutely out.

The elderly caller had now the congenial duty to do of restoring the
minister's apparel to its proper place overhead; and, glancing out of
the window, to be sure nobody was coming, she ascended to the
missionary's _sanctum sanctorum_.

Now, Rev. Mr. Payson, in his varied pursuits of preacher, pastor,
house-carpenter, stone-mason, farmer, and doctor,--for, having skill
in medicine, the sick depended somewhat on his medical care,--he was
quite apt to leave his uninviting study in disorder, especially when
suddenly called from home. Moreover, like the other cabins in a new
country, the house was overrun with field mice, making it, as Mr.
Payson sometimes said, "dangerous to sleep with one's mouth open, lest
a mouse might mistake it for his hole, and pop in." Whether, however,
such a suffocating casualty would occur or not, the wee animals chased
each other along the logs, ransacked the closet, scampered across the
beds, nibbling at everything that tempted their sharp little teeth;
even the clergyman's books and papers were mutilated by them most
irreverently.

The sight of the sheets and bits of writing paper, the news journals,
and old reviews,--for the missionary, unable to take the current
publications, read and re-read the old ones with a mournful
satisfactio