he younger ones mating easily with her simple, outspoken
naturalness. She goes freely everywhere; she is not stiffened by any
ceremony, nor does she carry any stately notions of the dignity of her
office,--some few there may be who wish that she had a keener sense of
the importance of her position; she even bursts unannounced into the
little glazed corner of the Tew partners, where she prattles away with
the sedate Mistress Tew in good, kindly fashion, winning that stiff old
lady's heart, and moving her to declare to all customers that the
parson's wife has no pride about her, and is "a dear little thing, to be
sure!"

On summer evenings, Dobbins is to be seen, two or three times in the
week, jogging along before the square-topped chaise, upon some highway
that leads into the town, with the parson seated within, with slackened
rein, and in thoughtful mood, from which he rouses himself from time to
time with a testy twitch and noisy chirrup that urge the poor beast into
a faster gait. All the while the little wife sits beside him, as if a
twittering sparrow had nestled itself upon the same perch with some
grave owl, and sat with him side by side, watching for the big eyes to
turn upon her, and chirping some pretty response for every solemn
utterance of the wise old bird beside her.

VIII.

On the return from one of these parochial drives, not long after their
establishment at Ashfield, it happened that the good parson and his wife
were not a little startled at sight of a stranger lounging familiarly at
their door. A little roof jutted out over the entrance to the parsonage,
without any apparent support, and flanking the door were two plank
seats, with their ends toward the street, cut away into the shape of
those "settles" which used to be seen in country taverns, and which here
seemed to invite a quiet out-of-door gossip. But the grave manner of the
parson had never invited to a very familiar use of this loitering-place,
even by the most devoted of the parishioners; and the appearance of a
stranger of some two-and-thirty years, with something in his manner, as
much as in his dress, which told of large familiarity with the world,
lounging upon this little porch, had amazed the passers-by, as much as
it now did the couple who drove up slowly in the square-topped chaise.

"Who can it be, Benjamin?" says Rachel.

"I really can't say," returns the parson.

"He seems very much at home, my dear,"--as indeed he does, wi