hrough the
stately proprieties of manner with which the spinster aunt is always
hedged about.

He wanders away after school-hours to the home of the Elderkins,--Phil
and he being sworn friends, and the good mother of Phil always having
ready for him a beaming look of welcome and a tender word or two that
somehow always find their way straight to his heart. He loiters with
Larkin, too, by the great stable-yard of the inn, though it is forbidden
ground. He breaks in upon the precise woman's rule of punctuality sadly;
many a cold dish he eats sulkily,--she sitting bolt upright in her place
at the table, looking down at him with glances which are every one a
punishment. Other times he is straying in the orchard at the hour of
some home-duty, and the active spinster goes to seek him, and not
threateningly, but with an assured step and a firm grip upon the hand of
the loiterer, which he knows not whether to count a favor or a
punishment, (and she as much at a loss, so inextricably interwoven are
her notions of duty and of kindness,) leads him homeward, plying him
with stately precepts upon the sin of negligence, and with earnest story
of the dreadful fate which is sure to overtake all bad boys who do not
obey and keep "by the rules"; and she instances those poor lads who were
eaten by the bears, of whom she has read to him the story in the Old
Testament.

"Who was it they called 'bald-head,' Reuben? Elisha or Elijah?"

He, in no mood for reply, is sulkily beating off the daisies with his
feet, as she drags him on; sometimes hanging back, with impotent, yet
concealed struggle, which she--not deigning to notice--overcomes with
even sharper step, and plies him the more closely with the dire results
of badness,--has not finished her talk, indeed, when they reach the
door-step and enter. There he, fuming now with that long struggle,
fuming the more because he has concealed it, makes one violent
discharge with a great frown on his little face, "You're an ugly old
thing, and I don't like you one bit!"

Esther, good soul, within hearing of it, lifts her hands in apparent
horror, but inwardly indulges in a wicked chuckle over the boy's spirit.

But the minister has heard him, too, and gravely summons the offender
into his study.

"My son, Reuben, this is very wrong."

And the boy breaks into a sob at this stage, which is a great relief.

"My boy, you ought to love your aunt."

"Why ought I?" says he.

"Why? why? Don't you