All this while I was trying to win the gracious favor of my
mother-in-law, but it was up-hill work. She would answer me with severe
politeness, and volunteer an occasional remark intended to be pleasant,
but the moment I seemed to be gaining headway, a turn at billiards with
Marston, for whom she had a great aversion, a thoughtless expression
with a flavor of profanity in it, or my cigars, which I now indulged in
without restraint, brought back her freezing air of disapproval.

"Oh, dear!" I yawned sometimes, "why can't I go ahead and enjoy myself
without minding that very respectable and severe old woman?" But I
couldn't do it. I was always feeling the influence of those eyes, and
even of her thoughts. I couldn't get away from it. Sunday came, and Mrs.
Pinkerton expressed the hope that we were to attend divine service
together. I hadn't thought of it till that moment, and then it struck me
as a terrible bore. There was no church within ten miles except a little
white, meek edifice in the neighboring village, occupied alternately by
Methodist and Baptist expounders of a very Calvinistic, and, to me, a
very unattractive sort of religion. It was not altogether to my
mother-in-law's liking, but she regarded any church as far better than
none.

"I presume you will go, sir," she said, addressing me when I made no
reply to the previous hint. She always used "sir," with a peculiar
emphasis, when any suggestion was intended to have the force of a
command.

"Well, really, I had not thought about it," I said, rather vexed, as I
secretly made up my mind, reckless of my policy of conciliation, that I
would not go at any price. A tedious, droning sermon of an hour and
perhaps an hour and a half in a country church, full of dismal
doctrines,--the sermon, not the church,--I couldn't stand, I thought.

Mrs. Pinkerton's eyes were upon me, waiting for a more definite answer.
"I--well, no, I don't think I really feel like it this morning. I
thought I would read to Bessie quietly in our room, and take a rest."

"Very well, sir," she said, "Bessie and I will walk down to the
village."

"The deuce you will!" I thought; "walk a mile and a half on a dusty
road; to be bored!" I knew it was useless to protest, and I was too
wilful to take back what I had said, have the team harnessed, and go,
like a good fellow, to church. "No, I'll be blowed if I do!" I muttered.

So off went the widow and her daughter without me. Bessie tripped around