nature would not let her.  They kept asking her for pity, and she still gulped down her own heart and gave it them, till at last she began to take a spite against her pets; so then she sent to most of them instead of going.  She sent rather larger slices of beef and bacon, and rather more yards of flannel than when she used to carry the like to them herself.  Susan had one or two young friends, daughters of farmers in the neighborhood, with whom she was a favorite, though the gayer ones sometimes quizzed her for her religious tendencies, and her lamentable indifference to flirtation.  But then she was so good and so good-humored. and so tolerant of other people’s tastes.  The prattle of these young ladies became now intolerable to Susan, and when she saw them coming to call on her she used to snatch up her bonnet and fly and lock herself up in a closet at the top of the house, and read some good book as quiet as a mouse, till the servants had hunted for her and told them she must be out.  She was not in a frame of mind to sustain tarlatans, barege, the history of the last hop, and the prophecies of the next; the wounded deer shrunk from its gamboling associates, and indeed from all strangers, except John Meadows.  “He talks to me about something worth talking about,” said Susan Merton.  It happened one day, while Susan was in this sad and I may say dangerous state of mind, that the servant came up to her, and told her a gentleman was on his horse at the door, and wanted to see Mr. Merton.

“Father is at market, Jane.”

“Yes, miss, but I told the gentleman you were at home.”

“Me! what have I to do with father’s visitors?”

“Miss,” replied Jane mysteriously, “it is a parson, and you are so fond of them, I could not think to let him go away without getting a word with anybody; and he has such a face.  La, miss, you never saw such a face.”

“Silly girl, what have I to do with handsome faces?”

“But he is not handsome, miss, not in the least, only he is beautiful.  You go and see else.”

“I hate strangers’ faces, but I will go to him, Jane; it is my duty, since it is a clergyman.  I will just go upstairs.”

“La, miss, what for? you are always neat, you are—­nobody ever catches you in your dishables like the rest of ’em.”

“I’ll just smooth my hair.”

“La, miss, what for? it is smooth as marble—­it always is.”

“Where is he, Jane?”

“In the front parlor.”

“I won’t be a moment.”

She went upstairs.  There was no necessity; Jane was right there; but it was a strict custom in the country, and is, for that matter, and will be till time and vanity shall be no more.  More majorum a girl must go up and look at herself in the glass if she did nothing more, before coming in to receive company.

Susan entered the parlor; she came in so gently that she had a moment to observe her visitor before he saw her.  He had seated himself with his back to the light, and was devouring a stupid book on husbandry that belonged to her father.  The moment she closed the door he saw her and rose from his seat.