isting you.'

Very kindly done, certainly, and I accepted the offer with eagerness. I
was to rest that evening, he said--I had had enough for one day; but it
was understood that on other evenings generally he was to come to Mr.
Bull's and instruct his assistant teacher in the A B C of mathematics. I
could not help thinking that few employers would have taken this
trouble.

Mr. Bull appeared to be of no earthly use in the household except to go
to the door, which, in Peppersville, was not an onerous duty; and had I
not so frequently seen the same thing, I should have wondered what Mrs.
Bull ever married him for. From frequent references to the time 'when
Mr. Bull was in the store,' I came to the conclusion that he had once
dealt in the heterogeneous collection of articles usually found in such
places. I was not informed whether Mr. Bull had 'given up the store,' or
whether 'the store' had given up Mr. Bull; but I was disposed to
entertain the latter idea.

There was no servant in the establishment except an old Indian woman,
who amused herself by preparing vegetables and washing dishes in the
kitchen--not being at all active, in consequence of having lost part of
her feet from indulging in a fancy for a couch of snow on one of the
coldest nights of the preceding winter, when, to use a charitable
phrase, 'she was not quite herself.' I believe that, even after this
melancholy warning, that eccentric person was frequently somebody else.
'However,' as Mrs. Bull said, 'she didn't disturb any one'--and although
I could not exactly see the force of this reasoning, I treated it with
respectful silence for Mrs. Bull's sake.

Miss Friggs, who was 'quite one of the family,' and had lived in it so
long that I believe she almost persuaded herself that she had been born
in it, 'did' her own room--which was perfectly appalling with its
fearful neatness. There was not a thread on the carpet, nor a particle
of dust in the corners; and the bed, when made up, was as accurately
proportioned as though it had all been scientifically measured off. I
have caught glimpses of Miss Friggs going about this business with her
head carefully tied up, as though it might burst with the immensity of
her ideas on the subject; and when she had finished, you might have
eaten off the floor--that is, if you preferred it to a table. This was
her one occupation in life, and she did it thoroughly; but it seemed
too sad to have so few occupations that any cou