. He was billetted upon the family, and had so won
the hearts of all but the mother, by his ready helpfulness and
kindliness of manner, that they had come to consider him as one of their
own number, and had almost forgotten the arbitrary way in which their
acquaintance had begun. His frequent presence in the kitchen, and
assistance in the labors of the family, was not, however, altogether of
a disinterested nature, being prompted by the same feeling that caused
Jacob's fourteen years of servitude for Rachel to seem but a day--"the
love he bore her."

If Jean Ingelow had lived and written at that time, the Sergeant might
have borrowed a verse or two to explain his love for Goodman Hoyt's
kitchen:

For there his oldest daughter stands,
With downcast eyes and skilful hands,
Before her ironing board.

She comforts all her mother's days,
And with her sweet, obedient ways
She makes her labor light:

So sweet to hear, so fair to see!
Oh, she is much too good for me,
That lovely Mary Hoyt.

She has my heart, sweet Mary Hoyt:
I'll e'en go sit again to-night
Beside her ironing board!

Ah, that flat-iron! It was while beneath her deft fingers it passed
swiftly over the smoking linen, that "the iron entered his soul"; iron,
we mean, of the nature from which Cupid forges his arrow-heads.

Matters came to a crisis in the spring of 1703. The family had "gone
a-sugaring" in Mr. Hoyt's "plantation" of maples, and the Sergeant and
Mary had been left to watch the great kettle of sap as it seethed and
boiled over the coals. The text which heads our story was one from which
the Rev. John Williams had preached on the preceding Sunday, and the
sermon had been the subject of conversation that day.

"I fear me much that thou art but as that kettle, Judah," was the remark
of Goodwife Hoyt as she moved away after another bucket of sap--"mere
sounding brass and a tinkling cowbell!"

Roguish Sally Hoyt, the younger sister of modest Mary, could not forbear
a saucy fling at the lovers.

"Yea, Judah, art thou like the kettle," she said, striking it a rap with
the paddle with which she was stirring its contents. But the kettle,
full to the brim of syrup, failed to respond with its usual resonant
ring. "Hearest thou, Sergeant? It is no more 'sounding brass,' the
reason thereof being that it is so filled with fire and sweetness that
it can hold no more. The same being a token