"Granting all this," I said, highly diverted by her earnestness, "and what are some of these seductions you have in mind?"
"Theatres," she replied promptly, "theatres and late hours, midnight suppers—and cocktails."
I laughed uproariously. "My dear Mary, if these deadly sins and perils alarm you, we'll cut them out. I care little for theatres, and less for midnight suppers. And as for cocktails, I shall make it my peculiar charge to see that Phyllis never hears the abominable word. Allowing for the removal of these temptations, I still think that a trip to the city would do our country flower a world of good, though I have nothing but praise for the manner in which you have brought her up."
"John," she answered very gravely, "I have endeavored to do my duty as I saw it. I have tried to bring Phyllis up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."
The expression carried me back to my childhood, and I bit my lips. "Of course you have," I said. "Wasn't I brought up in this same village, in the same way? Did not my good mother and my blessed, grandmother inflict nurture and admonition upon me, that I might grow up as you see me, a true child of the pilgrim fathers? The nurture, I remember, was a particularly hard seat in our particularly gloomy old meetinghouse, and the admonition took up the greater part of the Sabbath day, with a disenchanting prospect of further admonition at home if I failed to keep awake. I do not mean to say that I am not thankful for the experience. In truth I am doubly thankful—thankful that I had it, and thankful that it is over."
To this Mary vouchsafed no further remonstrance than a distrustful shake of the head. Excellent woman! Is it not to such as you, earnest, faithful, self-sacrificing, God-fearing, that the best in young manhood, the purest in young womanhood, owe the strength of the qualities that are the vital force of the nation?
IN the end the united opposition was too much for Mary's arguments, and to town we went. The pleasure of the journey, on my part, was somewhat clouded as to the welcome we should receive from Prudence, and truly it acquired my greatest powers of dissimulation to feign an easy indifference and air of authority before that worthy creature, as with the most studied politeness and formal hospitality she received us at the gate. Prudence and I had sparred so many years that we were like two expert athletes, and while neither apparently noticed the other, each was perfectly conscious of the adversary's slightest movement. Hence I detected at once her strong aversion to Mary, whom she immediately selected as a probable mistress, and I saw her several times vainly try to repress a grimace of disdain and wrath. It was my first impulse to follow Prudence into the kitchen, after the ladies had gone to their rooms, and make a clean breast of the untoward tidings, but I lacked the moral courage and contented myself with an inward show of strength. Why should I pander to this woman's caprices? Was I not master in my own house? Should I not do as I pleased? I would punish her with the severity of my silence, and perhaps in a week or two, when she was more tractable, I would condescend to tell her exactly how matters stood. In this I would be firm.
But the next morning, before my guests were out of bed, I decided that I was not acting wisely. Was not Prudence an old, faithful, and trustworthy servant? Had she not been loyal to my interests, and was not her whole life wrapped up in my comfort? Surely I wronged her to withhold from her the confidence she had so fairly earned, and the flush of shame came to my face as I reflected that I was indulging my first deceit. I took a turn in the garden, in the heavenly cool of the early morning, to compose my nerves for a very probable ordeal, and then I walked boldly into the kitchen where Prudence sat, with a wooden bowl in her lap, paring apples.