-after,--that was not the Connecticut mode,--but for the sake
of discussing and toying with it: very much as a sly old grimalkin toys
with a mouse,--now seeming to entertain it kindly, then giving it a run,
then leaping after it, crunching a limb of it, bearing it off into some
private corner, giving it a new escape, swallowing it perhaps at last,
and appropriating it by long process of digestion. And even then, the
shrewd Connecticut man, if accused of modulating his own opinions after
those of the Squire, would say, "No, I allers thought so."

Such a man as Giles Elderkin is of course ready with a hearty, outspoken
word of cheer for his minister. Nay, the very religion of the Squire,
which the parson had looked upon as somewhat discursive and
human,--giving too large a place to good works,--was decisive and to the
point in the present emergency.

"It's God's doing," said he; "we must take the cup He gives us. For the
best, isn't it, Parson?"

"I do, Squire. Thank God, I can."

There was good Mrs. Elderkin--who made up by her devotion to the special
tenets of the clergyman many of the shortcomings of the Squire--insisted
upon sending for the poor boy Reuben, that he might forget his grief in
her kindness, and in frolic with the Elderkins through that famous
garden, with its huge hedges of box,--such a garden as was certainly not
to be matched elsewhere in Ashfield. The same good woman, too, sends
down a wagon-load of substantial things from her larder, for the present
relief of the stricken household; to which the Squire has added a little
round jug of choice Santa Cruz rum,--remembering the long watches of the
parson. This may shock us now; and yet it is to be feared that in our
day the sin of hypocrisy is to be added to the sin of indulgence: the
old people nestled under no cover of liver specifics or bitters. Reform
has made a grand march indeed; but the Devil, with his square bottles
and Scheidam schnapps, has kept a pretty even pace with it.

XII.

The boy Reuben, in those first weeks after his loss, wandered about as
if in a maze, wondering at the great blank that death had made; or,
warming himself at some out-door sport, he rushed in with a pleasant
forgetfulness,--shouting,--up the stairs,--to the accustomed door, and
bursts in upon the cold chamber, so long closed, where the bitter
knowledge comes upon him fresh once more. Esther, good soul that she is,
has heard his clatter upon, the floor, his bound