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MR. JOHNS, meanwhile, when he had left the
Handby parlor, where we saw him last, and was
fairly upon the stair, had replied to the suggestion of
his little wife about the sermon on Revelations with a
fugitive kiss, and said, “I will think of it, Rachel.”

And he did think of it, — thought of it so well, that
he left the beautiful sermon in his drawer, and took
with him a couple of strong doctrinal discourses, upon
the private hearing of which his charming wife had
commented by dropping asleep (poor thing!) in her
chair.

But the strong men and women of Ashfield relished
them better. There was a sermon for the morning on
“Regeneration the work only of grace”; and another
for the afternoon, on the outer leaf of which was written,
in the parson's bold hand, “The doctrine of Election
compatible with the infinite goodness of God.” It is
hard to say which of the two was the better, or which
commended itself most to the church full of people who
listened. Deacon Tourtelot, — a short, wiry man, with
reddish whiskers brushed primly forward, — sitting

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under the very droppings of the pulpit, with painful erectness,
and listening grimly throughout, was inclined to
the sermon of the morning. Dame Tourtelot, who over-topped
her husband by half a head, and from her great
scoop hat, trimmed with green, kept her keen eyes
fastened intently upon the minister on trial, was enlisted
in the same belief, until she heard the Deacon's timid
expression of preference, when she pounced upon him,
and declared for the Election discourse. It was not
her way to allow him to enjoy an opinion of his own
getting. Miss Almira, their only child, and now grown
into a spare womanhood, that was decorated with
another scoop hat akin to the mother's, — from under
which hung two yellow festoons of ringlets tied with
lively blue ribbons, — was steadfastly observant;
though wearing a fagged air before the day was over,
and consulting on one or two occasions a little phial of
“salts,” with a side movement of the head, and an inquiring
nostril.

Squire Elderkin, having thrown himself into a comfortable
position in the corner of his square pew, is
cheerfully attentive; and at one or two of the more
marked passages of the sermon bestows a nod of approval,
and a glance at Miss Meacham and Mrs. Elderkin,
to receive their acknowledgment of the same. The
young Elderkins (of whom three are of meeting-house
size) are variously affected; Miss Dora, being turned

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of six, wears an air of some weariness, and having
dispatched all the edible matter upon a stalk of caraway,
she uses the despoiled brush in keeping the
youngest boy, Ned, in a state of uneasy wakefulness.
Bob, ranking between the two in point of years, and
being mechanically inclined, devotes himself to turning
in their sockets the little bobbins which form a balustrade
around the top of the pew; but being diverted
from this very suddenly by a sharp squeak that calls
the attention of his Aunt Joanna, he assumes the penitential
air of listener for full five minutes; afterward
he relieves himself by constructing a small meeting-house
out of the psalm-books and Bible, his Aunt Joanna's
spectacle-case serving for a steeple.

There was an air of subdued reverence in the new
clergyman, which was not only agreeable to the people
in itself, but seemed to very many thoughtful ones to imply
a certain respect for them and for the parish. The
men of that day in Ashfield were intolerant of mere elegances,
or of any jauntiness of manner. But Mr. Johns
was so calm and serious, and yet gave so earnest expression
to the old beliefs they had so long cherished,—
he was so clearly wedded to all those rigidities by
which the good people thought it a merit to cramp their
religious thinking, — that there was but one opinion of
his fitness.

Deacon Tourtelot, sidling down the aisle after service,

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out of hearing of his consort, says to Elderkin, “Smart
man, Squire.”

And the Squire nods acquiescence. “Sound sermonizer, —
sound sermonizer, Deacon.”

These two opinions were as good as a majority-vote
in the town of Ashfield, — all the more since the Squire
was a thorough-going Jeffersonian Democrat, and the
Deacon a warm Federalist, so far as the poor man
could be warm at any thing, who was on the alert every
hour of his life to escape the hammer of his wife's reproaches.

So it happened that the parish was called together,
and an invitation extended to Brother Johns to continue
his ministrations for a month further. Of course the
novitiate understood this to be the crucial test; and he
accepted it with a composure, and a lack of impertinent
effort to please them overmuch, which altogether
charmed them. On four successive Saturdays he drove
over to Ashfield, — sometimes stopping with one or the
other of the two deacons, and at other times with Squire
Elderkin, — and on one or two occasions taking his
wife by special invitation. Of her, too, the people of
Ashfield had but one opinion: that she was of a ductile
temper was most easy to be seen; and there was
not a strong-minded woman of the parish but anticipated
with delight the power and pleasure of moulding
her to her wishes. The husband continued to preach

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agreeably to their notions of orthodoxy, and at the end
of the month they gave him a “call,” with the promise
of four hundred dollars a year, besides sundry odds and
ends made up by donation visits and otherwise.

This sum, which was not an inconsiderable one for
those days, enabled the clergyman to rent as a parsonage
the old house we have seen, with the big brazen
knocker, and diamond lights in either half of its green
door. It stood under the shade of two huge ashes, at a
little remove back from the street, and within easy
walk from the central common. A heavy dentilated
cornice, from which the paint was peeling away in flaky
patches, hung over the windows of the second floor.
Within the door was a little entry — (for years and years
the pastor's hat and cane used to lie upon a table that
stood just within the door); from the entry a cramped
stairway, by three sharp angles, led to the floor above.
To the right and left were two low parlors. The sun
was shining broadly in the south one when the couple
first entered the house.

“Good!” said Rachel, with her pleasant, brisk tone,—
“this shall be your study, Benjamin; the bookcase
here, the table there, a nice warm carpet, we 'll paper
it with blue, the Major's sword shall be hung over the
mantel.”

“Tut! tut!” says the clergyman; “a sword, Rachel,—
in my study?”

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