son an entire parsimonious vestry. "I had the pleasure of
driving your granddaughter home, and now I must be going back to bring
mother. It was a delightful occasion, Mrs. Revercomb, and you are to be
congratulated on the charming addition to your family." He hadn't
meant to use the word "charming"--he had intended to say "estimable"
instead--but Sarah embarrassed him by her expression, and it slipped out
before he was aware of it. Her manner annoyed him excessively. It was as
bad as looking up suddenly in the midst of one of the finest paragraphs
in his sermon and meeting a supercilious look on a face in his
congregation.

"Humph!" observed Sarah shortly, and when he had gone, she emitted the
sound again, half to herself, half to her audience, "humph!"

"What's the matter, grandma?" inquired Blossom listlessly, "you don't
look as if you were pleased."

"Oh, I'm pleased," replied Sarah curtly. "I'm pleased. Did you notice
how yellow Abel was lookin' at the weddin'? What he needs is a good dose
of castor oil. I've seen him like that befo', an' I know."

"Oh, grandma! how can you? who ever heard of anybody taking castor oil
on their wedding day?"

"Well, thar's a lot of 'em that would better," rejoined Sarah in her
tart manner. The perfection of Mr. Mullen's behaviour in church combined
with her forgetfulness to make up the feather bed had destroyed her day,
and her irritation expressed itself as usual in a moral revolt from her
surroundings. "To think of makin' all this fuss about that pop-eyed Judy
Hatch," she thought, and a minute later she said aloud, "Thar they are
now; Blossom, you take Judy upstairs to her room an' I'll see after
Abel. It ain't any use contradictin' me. He's in for a bilious spell
just as sure as you are born." She spoke irritably, for her anxiety
about Abel's liver covered a deeper disquietude, and she was battling
with all the obstinacy of the Hawtreys against the acknowledgment that
the ailment she was preparing to dose with drugs was a simple malady
of the soul. In her moral universe, sin and virtue were two separate
entities, as easily distinguished on the surface as any other phenomena.
That a mere feeling, not produced by a disordered liver, could make a
man wear that drawn and desperate look in his face, appeared to her both
unnatural and reprehensible.

But Abel did not appear, though Sarah awaited his entrance with a
bottle in her hand. As soon as he had turned his mare out to pastu