The nature of each herb to know
Which cures and which can kill.
—Dryden.
When the fame of her housekeeperly prowesses had gained for comely Miss Sophia Rickart the unexpected offer of parson Tutterville’s hand and heart—the divine had taken this wise step after many years of bachelorhood and varied, but always intolerable slavery to “sluts, minxes, and hags”—like the dauntless woman she was, she resolved to prove herself worthy of the promotion.
Although her horizon had hitherto been bounded by duck-pond to the north and dairy to the south, still-room to the east and linen-cupboard to the west, she argued that one so admittedly passed mistress in the arts of providing for her neighbour’s body need have little fear about dealing with the comparatively simple requirements of his soul! It was, therefore, after but a short course of study that she claimed to have graduated from the status of scholar to that of qualified expounder. Indeed, she was as pungently and comfortably stuffed with undigested texts and parables as her plumpest roast ducks with sage and onions.
Before long she began to consider herself, entitled by special grace of state, to interpret in partibus the will of the Almighty to less privileged individuals; and, in course of time, the enthusiastic spouse succeeded in taking the more trivial parish cares almost as completely off the parson’s hands as those of his household. What if, her flow of ideas being in excess of memory and understanding, the language of the Bindon prophetess were on occasions the cause of much secret amusement to the scholarly gentleman—one sip of her exquisite coffee was sufficient to re-establish the balance of things!
“Sophia’s texts will do the villagers quite as much good as mine,” he used to say, philosophically, and allow himself an extra spell with his Horace or his Spectator, whilst his wife sallied forth upon the path of war and mission.
With a large garden hat tied somewhat askew under the most amenable of her chins, with exuberant ringlets bobbing excitedly round her face, Madam Tutterville, as old-fashioned Bindon invariably called the parson’s lady—burst in upon Ellinor’s breakfast the morning after the latter’s arrival.
It was a day of alternate moods, now with loud wind voice and storm-tears lamenting, like Shylock, the loss of its treasures; now, like prodigal Jessica, tossing the gold shekels into space, making mock in sunshine of age and sorrow, recklessly hurrying on the inevitable ruin.
That Madam Tutterville had on her way been pelted with rain and buffeted with wind, her curls testified. But Ellinor, as she rose from behind her table by the open window, had the glory of a fresh sunburst on her hair and in her eyes.