he party to be
cynical, and to pry into, and comment, on the backslidings of the entire
community. This weakness, however, was characteristic of neither the
pastor nor the deacon, each of whom regarded his professions too much in
the light of a regular "business transaction," to descend into these
little abuses. As for Mary, good creature, her humility was so profound as
to cause her to believe herself among the weakest and least favoured of
all who belonged to meeting.

"I was sorry that my late journey into Connecticut prevented my seeing the
poor man who was so suddenly taken away from the house of Widow White,"
observed the Rev. Mr. Whittle, some little time after he had made his
original attack on the sheepshead. "They tell me it was a hopeless case
from the first?"

"So Dr. Sage considered it," answered the deacon. "Captain Gar'ner
volunteered to go across for the doctor in _my_ boat--" with a heavy
emphasis on the possessive pronoun--"and we had him to look at the
patient. But, if the salt-water _be_ good for consumptive people, as some
pretend, I think there is generally little hope for seamen whose lungs
once give way."

"The poor man was a mariner, was he? I did not know his calling, but had
rather got the impression that he was a husbandman. Did he belong to
Oyster Pond?"

"No; we have none of the name of Daggett here, which is a tribe on the
Vineyard. Most of the Daggetts are seafaring folks (folk, _Anglice_) and
this man was one of that class, _I believe_; though I know nothing of him,
or of his pursuits, except by a word, here and there, dropped in
discourse."

The deacon thought himself safe in venturing this little departure from
the literal truth, inasmuch as no one had been present, or he _thought_ no
one had ever been present at his many secret conferences with the deceased
mariner. Little, however, did he understand the character of the Widow
White, if he flattered himself with holding any discourse under her roof,
in which she was not to participate in its subject. So far from this
having been the case, the good woman had contrived to obtain, not only a
listening-place, but a peeping-hole, where she both heard and saw most of
that which passed between her guest and the deacon. Had her powers of
comprehension been equal to her will, or had not her mind been
prepossessed with the notion that the deacon _must_ be after herself, old
Suffolk would have rung with the marvels that were thus revealed.