ething in the tone of Miss Johns in
giving directions that drew off all moral power of objection as surely
as a good metallic conductor would free an overcharged cloud of its
electricity.

The parishioners were not slow to perceive that new order prevailed at
the quiet parsonage. Curiosity, no less than the staid proprieties which
governed the action of the chief inhabitants, had brought them early
into contact with the new mistress. She received all with dignity and
with an exactitude of deportment that charmed the precise ones and that
awed the younger folks. The bustling Dame Tourtelot had come among the
earliest, and her brief report was,--"Tourtelot, Miss Johns's as smart
as a steel trap."

Nor was the spinster sister without a degree of cultivation which
commended her to the more intellectual people of Ashfield. She was a
reader of "Rokeby" and of Miss Austen's novels, of Josephus and of
Rollin's "Ancient History." The Miss Hapgoods, who were the
blue-stockings of the place, were charmed to have such an addition to
the cultivated circle of the parish. To make the success of Miss Johns
still more decided, she brought with her a certain knowledge of the
conventionalisms of the city, by reason of her occasional visits to her
sister Mabel, (now Mrs. Brindlock of Greenwich Street,) which to many
excellent women gave larger assurance of her position and dignity than
all besides. Before the first year of her advent had gone by, it was
quite plain that she was to become one of the prominent directors of the
female world of Ashfield.

Only in the parsonage itself did her influence find its most serious
limitations,--and these in connection with the boy Reuben.

XV.

There is a deep emotional nature in the lad, which, by the time he has
reached his eighth year,--Miss Eliza having now been in the position of
mistress of the household a twelvemonth,--works itself off in explosive
tempests of feeling, with which the prim spinster has but faint
sympathy. No care could be more studious and complete than that with
which she looks after the boy's wardrobe and the ordering of his little
chamber; his supply of mittens, of stockings, and of underclothing is
always of the most ample; nay, his caprices of the table are not wholly
overlooked, and she hopes to win upon him by the dishes that are most
toothsome; but, however grateful for the moment, his boyish affections
can never make their way with any force or passionate flow t