ss, he was only too happy to be told daily what
to do, and to be charged not to be forthputting or in any way original
in his discharge of that duty. He learned, however, to discriminate
between the lines of his life, and very much preferred these
stockholders' meetings and trustees' dinners and Commencement collations
to another set of occasions, from which he used to beg off most
piteously. Our excellent brother, Dr. Fillmore, had taken a notion at
this time that our Sandemanian churches needed more expression of mutual
sympathy. He insisted upon it that we were remiss. He said, that, if the
Bishop came to preach at Naguadavick, all the Episcopal clergy of the
neighborhood were present; if Dr. Pond came, all the Congregational
clergymen turned out to hear him; if Dr. Nichols, all the Unitarians;
and he thought we owed it to each other, that, whenever there was an
occasional service at a Sandemanian church, the other brethren should
all, if possible, attend. "It looked well," if nothing more. Now this
really meant that I had not been to hear one of Dr. Fillmore's lectures
on the Ethnology of Religion. He forgot that he did not hear one of my
course on the "Sandemanianism of Anselm." But I felt badly when he said
it; and afterwards I always made Dennis go to hear all the brethren
preach, when I was not preaching myself. This was what he took
exceptions to,--the only thing, as I said, which he ever did except to.
Now came the advantage of his long morning-nap, and of the green tea
with which Polly supplied the kitchen. But he would plead, so humbly, to
be let off, only from one or two! I never excepted him, however. I knew
the lectures were of value, and I thought it best he should be able to
keep the connection.

Polly is more rash than I am, as the reader has observed in the outset
of this memoir. She risked Dennis one night under the eyes of her own
sex. Governor Gorges had always been very kind to us; and when he gave
his great annual party to the town, asked us. I confess I hated to go. I
was deep in the new volume of Pfeiffer's "Mystics," which Haliburton had
just sent me from Boston. "But how rude," said Polly, "not to return the
Governor's civility and Mrs. Gorges's, when they will be sure to ask why
you are away!" Still I demurred, and at last she, with the wit of Eve
and of Semiramis conjoined, let me off by saying, that, if I would go in
with her, and sustain the initial conversations with the Governor and
the