"Perhaps so; one can never say. The French express their joy with flowers, and they bury their grief with flowers. I like them for it; I think there's a ripe philosophy in it."
"A heathen philosophy," said the minister.
At noon Maverick left upon the old swaying stage-coach,—looking out, as he passed, upon the parsonage, with its quaintly panelled door, and its diamond lights, of which he long kept the image in his mind. That brazen knocker he seemed to hear in later years, beating,—beating as if his brain lay under it.
"I think Mr. Frank Maverick is a most charming man," said the pretty Mrs. Johns to her husband.
"He is, Rachel, and generous and open-hearted,—and yet, in the sight of Heaven, I fear, a miserable sinner."
"But, Benjamin, my dear, we are all sinners."
"All,—all, Rachel, God help us!"
IX.
In December of the year 1820 came about a certain event of which hint has been already given by the party chiefly concerned; and Mrs. Johns presented her husband with a fine boy, who was in due time christened—Reuben.
Mrs. Handby was present at this eventful period, occupying the guest-chamber, and delighting in all the little adornments that had been prepared by the loving hands of her daughter; and upon the following Sabbath, Mr. Johns, for the first time since his entrance upon the pastoral duties of Ashfield, ventured to repeat an old sermon. Dame Tourtelot had been present on the momentous occasion, with such a tempest of suggestions in regard to the wrappings and feeding of the new comer, that the poor mother had quietly begged the good clergyman to decoy her, on her next visit, into his study. This he did, and succeeded in fastening her with a discussion upon the import of the word baptize, in which he was in a fair way of being carried by storm, if he had not retreated under cover of his Greek Lexicon.