In those days, the minister united in himself all those ideas of superior position and cultivation with which the theocratic system of the New England community had invested him.  Mrs. Scudder’s notions of social rank could reach no higher than to place her daughter on the throne of such preeminence.

Her Mary, she pondered, was no common girl.  In those days, it was a rare thing for young persons to devote themselves to religion or make any professions of devout life.  The church, or that body of people who professed to have passed through a divine regeneration, was almost entirely confined to middle-aged and elderly people, and it was looked upon as a singular and unwonted call of divine grace when young persons came forward to attach themselves to it.  When Mary, therefore, at quite an early age, in all the bloom of her youthful beauty, arose, according to the simple and impressive New England rite, to consecrate herself publicly to a religious life, and to join the company of professing Christians, she was regarded with a species of deference amounting even to awe.  Had it not been for the childlike, unconscious simplicity of her manners, the young people of her age would have shrunk away from her, as from one entirely out of their line of thought and feeling; but a certain natural and innocent playfulness and amiable self-forgetfulness made her a general favorite.

Nevertheless, Mrs. Scudder knew no young man whom she deemed worthy to have and hold a heart which she priced so highly.  As to James, he stood at double disadvantage, because, as her cousin’s son, he had grown up from childhood under her eye, and all those sins and iniquities into which gay and adventurous youngsters will be falling had come to her knowledge.  She felt kindly to the youth; she wished him well; but as to giving him her Mary!—­the very suggestion made her dislike him.  She was quite sure he must have tried to beguile her,—­he must have tampered with her feelings, to arouse in her pure and well-ordered mind so much emotion and devotedness as she had witnessed.

How encouraging a Providence, then, was it that he was gone to sea for three years!—­how fortunate that Mary had been prevented in any way from committing herself with him!—­how encouraging that the only man in those parts, in the least fitted to appreciate her, seemed so greatly pleased and absorbed in her society!—­how easily might Mary’s dutiful reverence be changed to a warmer sentiment, when she should find that so great a man could descend from his lofty thoughts to think of her!

In fact, before Mrs. Scudder had gone to sleep the first night after James’s departure, she had settled upon the house where the minister and his young wife were to live, had reviewed the window-curtains and bed-quilts for each room, and glanced complacently at an improved receipt for wedding-cake which might be brought out to glorify a certain occasion!

CHAPTER VII.