because it was
ironing day; Wednesday, because it was baking day; Thursday, because
to-morrow was Friday; and so on to the end of the week. Then she had the
care of reminding all in the house of every thing each was to do from
week's end to week's end; and she was so faithful in this respect, that
scarcely an original act of volition took place in the family. The poor
deacon was reminded when he went out and when he came in, when he sat
down and when he rose up, so that an act of omission could only have
been committed through sheer malice prepense.

But the supervision of a whole family of children afforded to a lady of
her active turn of mind more abundant matter of exertion. To see that
their faces were washed, their clothes mended, and their catechism
learned; to see that they did not pick the flowers, nor throw stones at
the chickens, nor sophisticate the great house dog, was an accumulation
of care that devolved almost entirely on Mrs. Abigail, so that, by her
own account, she lived and throve by a perpetual miracle.

The eldest of her charge, at the time this story begins, was a girl just
arrived at young ladyhood, and her name was Mary. Now we know that
people very seldom have stories written about them who have not
sylph-like forms, and glorious eyes, or, at least, "a certain
inexpressible charm diffused over their whole person." But stories have
of late so much abounded that they actually seem to have used up all the
eyes, hair, teeth, lips, and forms necessary for a heroine, so that no
one can now pretend to find an original collection wherewith to set one
forth. These things considered, I regard it as fortunate that my heroine
was not a beauty. She looked neither like a sylph, nor an oread, nor a
fairy; she had neither _l'air distingue_ nor _l'air magnifique_, but
bore a great resemblance to a real mortal girl, such as you might pass a
dozen of without any particular comment--one of those appearances,
which, though common as water, may, like that, be colored any way by the
associations you connect with it. Accordingly, a faultless taste in
dress, a perfect ease and gayety of manner, a constant flow of kindly
feeling, seemed in her case to produce all the effect of beauty. Her
manners had just dignity enough to repel impertinence without destroying
the careless freedom and sprightliness in which she commonly indulged.
No person had a merrier run of stories, songs, and village traditions,
and all those odds a