der our roof. He is, to be
sure, kind o' masterful, and I shall have to take him off Mis' Pennel's
hands before long, and put him into the sloop. But, after all, there
seems to be the makin' of a man in him, and when we are called away, why
he'll be as a brother to poor little Mara. Yes, I think it's best as 't
is."

The minister, as he flitted across the bay by moonlight, felt relieved
of a burden. His secret was locked up as safe in the breast of Zephaniah
Pennel as it could be in his own.

CHAPTER XIII

BOY AND GIRL

Zephaniah Pennel was what might be called a Hebrew of the Hebrews.

New England, in her earlier days, founding her institutions on the
Hebrew Scriptures, bred better Jews than Moses could, because she read
Moses with the amendments of Christ.

The state of society in some of the districts of Maine, in these days,
much resembled in its spirit that which Moses labored to produce in
ruder ages. It was entirely democratic, simple, grave, hearty, and
sincere,--solemn and religious in its daily tone, and yet, as to all
material good, full of wholesome thrift and prosperity. Perhaps, taking
the average mass of the people, a more healthful and desirable state of
society never existed. Its better specimens had a simple Doric grandeur
unsurpassed in any age. The bringing up a child in this state of society
was a far more simple enterprise than in our modern times, when the
factious wants and aspirations are so much more developed.

Zephaniah Pennel was as high as anybody in the land. He owned not only
the neat little schooner, "Brilliant," with divers small fishing-boats,
but also a snug farm, adjoining the brown house, together with some
fresh, juicy pasture-lots on neighboring islands, where he raised
mutton, unsurpassed even by the English South-down, and wool, which
furnished homespun to clothe his family on all every-day occasions.

Mrs. Pennel, to be sure, had silks and satins, and flowered India
chintz, and even a Cashmere shawl, the fruits of some of her husband's
earlier voyages, which were, however, carefully stowed away for
occasions so high and mighty, that they seldom saw the light. _Not to
wear best things every day_ was a maxim of New England thrift as little
disputed as any verse of the catechism; and so Mrs. Pennel found the
stuff gown of her own dyeing and spinning so respectable for most
purposes, that it figured even in the meeting-house itself, except on
the very finest of Su