Day by day he buried himself in study or in visits among his people, Joe frequently conveying him to the outskirts of the parish in his father's buggy.
One afternoon he had been alone to a distant part of the town, and was returning, when he stopped at a small thread and needle store to purchase a pair of gloves. Behind the counter was a young girl who attracted his attention by a peculiarly merry expression. The color deepened in her cheeks as she took down box after box, searching for the right number, and at last she asked him to excuse her ignorance, as she was only a new hand.
"This pair seems to be very elastic," she said, striving in vain to control the muscles of her face, which, in spite of her efforts, dimpled and beamed in the most mirth-provoking manner. She stretched the kid across the back of the glove, and held it out to him, when he put out his hand for her to measure it. He could scarcely help noticing that the fingers of the shop girl were beautifully tapering, and that her one ring, though not a diamond, was large and costly.
Just as he was paying for the gloves, a woman, fat and rosy, came bustling in, exclaiming, as she saw what was passing,—
"Well, I never did! Why, Miss—"
She checked herself suddenly, warned by a glance from the young lady.
The clergyman had scarcely reached the street when he heard the
woman's voice saying,—
"That's the new parson. Folks like him, mostly, though they do say he's kind o' stiff and proud."
The reflections caused by these words were not pleasant. It was possible that when his thoughts were dwelling on his own painful experience his manner might be reticent. "If they consider me proud," was his reflection, "how little they know me! Why, I would exchange gladly with those rough boys playing ball yonder, if by doing so I would get rid of these harrowing memories. Well, I owe my thanks to the woman, though I suppose she scarcely intended that I should hear her criticisms."