not come to
Elizabeth. However, it gave her pleasure--and a little pain as well--to
think so, and it was a good while before she found out that she had made
a mistake.

As for Mr Maxwell, he was "coming to himself," as Mrs Fleming had
predicted. His health improved, and as he grew familiar with his new
circumstances, the despondency that had weighed him down was dispelled.
Before the snow came, he was making visits among the people, without any
one to keep him in countenance. Not regular pastoral visits, but quite
informal ones, to the farmer in his pasture or wood-lot, or as he
followed his oxen over the autumn fields. He dropped now and then into
the workshop of Samuel Green, the carpenter, and exchanged a word with
John McNider as he passed his forge, where he afterward often stopped to
have a talk. The first theological discussion he had in Gershom was
held in Peter Longley's shoe-shop, one morning when he found that
amiable sceptic alone and disposed--as he generally was--for a
declaration of his rather peculiar views of doctrine and practice; and
his first temperance lecture was given to an audience of one, as he
drove in Mark Varney's ox-cart over that poor man's dreary and neglected
fields.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

MINISTER AND PEOPLE.

In Gershom in these primitive days, a deep interest in the affairs of
their neighbours, private, personal and relative, and a full and free
discussion of the same, implied to the minds of people in general no
violation of any law of morals or expediency. It was a part of the
established order of things, which had its advantages and disadvantages.
Almost everybody had a measure of enjoyment in it, and everybody had to
submit to it.

Even those among the people who would have found little to interest them
in the comings and goings of their neighbours generally, took part in
the admiring discussion of the comings and goings of the minister.
There was a comfortable sense of duty about the matter, a feeling that
they were manifesting an interest in "the cause," and "holding up the
minister's hands" on such occasions that was agreeable. There was a
sense of satisfaction in the frequent allusions made to the Sunday's
sermon, in the repetition of the text and "heads," and in the admiring
remarks and comparisons which usually accompanied this, as if it were
religious conversation that was being carried on and enjoyed. The
pleasing delusion extended to the old people's endless t