"I can tell them they won't raise any funds out of me," said Dolly—"Do I ever go to the springs? Do I ever get low-spirited? When minister's folks want to go on a frolic they always get up some such nonsense, and the parish has to pay the fiddler. It won't do," said Dolly. "I shan't give the first red cent toward it. His wife is going too, I 'spose."
"Yes—both on 'em—they are both all down at the heel. I'm sorry for 'em."
"Well, I ain't," said Dolly—"babies is as plenty as blackberries, for the matter of that; they may have a dozen more yet, and if they don't, why then they will have more time to call on the parish, and make sermons and things—it is ridikilis!"
Years rolled slowly away. Difftown, doomed to stereotyped dullness, remained in statu quo. It had still its "trainings" on the green, its cattle-fair Mondays, and its preceding Sabbaths in which herds of cattle, driven into the village on that day to 'save time' (as if time was ever saved or gained by breaking the fourth commandment), ran bleating round the little church, and with the whoas of their drivers, drowned the feeble Mr. Clifton's voice; feeble, though he still labored on, for consumption lent its unnatural brightness to his eye, and burned upon his hollow cheek;—the parsonage was doubly drear now, for the gentle form which flitted around it, had lain down long since with "the baby," and the broken band was destined soon to be complete.
CHAPTER XIX.
"'Most there, driver?" thundered out a red-faced man, as he thrust his frowsy head out of the stage-coach window.
"'Most there? Sahara is nothing to this sand-hill; phew! touch up yer hosses, can't you? I'm perspiring like an eel in a frying-pan."
"So are my horses," answered the driver, sulkily, "I can't run them up hill, this weather, to please you."