“Mr. S—— gave me a look, but it was only to smile at the expression of my eyes, which, I felt, were, fairly dancing; and he replied quite meekly:
“‘It was very foolish of me to be so unreasonable—but I have had a lesson that will not be soon forgotten.’
“I could have thrown my arms around him in ecstasy, but they were full of flour, and as I had ‘a respect for the cloth,’ I desisted. He never again volunteered to take in six ministers at once; how truly they had been ‘taken in,’ they could probably testify.”
“Well,” said Milly, with a sigh, “were you not sorry that you had married Mr. S——?”
“Not at all,” replied the visitor, with a smile at this detriment to her advice, “I would do the same thing again to-morrow.”
Milly was surprised; she had seen Mr. S——, a grave, mild-looking gentleman, in a white cravat, but, while she regarded him with the greatest reverence, and trembled whenever she encountered him on the stairs, she could not realize the possibility of his compensating for all these trials—even Mr. Saybrook failed there.
The next Sunday the young minister was as eloquent and fascinating as ever; but Milly glanced at his white cravat and thought of the ironings—she glanced at the congregation and thought of sewing-societies—and, like the things in “The Philosopher’s Scales,” Mr. Saybrook went up with a bound, while these stern realities pressed heavily down in the balance. Her eyes were opened, and the young minister fell to the lot of some competitor who had not been favored with “a peep behind the scenes.”
FRAGMENT.—A PICTURE.
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