Before spring there were three public events in Surrey.  A lighthouse was built on Gloster Point, below our house.  At night there was a bridge of red, tremulous light between my window and its tower, which seemed to shorten the distance.  A town-clock had been placed in the belfry of the new church in the western part of the village.  Veronica could see the tips of its gilded hands from the top of her window, and hear it strike through the night, whether the wind was fair to bring the sound or not.  She liked to hear the hours cry that they had gone.  Soon after the clock was up, she recollected that Mrs. Crossman’s dog had ceased to bark at night, as was his wont, and sent her a note inquiring about it, for she thought there was something poetical in connection with nocturnal noises, which she hoped Mrs. Crossman felt also.  Fanny conveyed the note, and read it likewise, as Mrs. Crossman declared her inability to read writing with her new spectacles, which a peddler had cheated her with lately.  She laughed at it, and sent word to Veronica that she was the curiousest young woman for her age that she had ever heard of; that the dog slept in the house of nights, for he was blind and deaf now; but that Crossman should get a new dog with a loud bark, if the dear child wanted it.

A new dog soon came, so fierce that Abram told Temperance that people were afraid to pass Crossman’s.  She guessed it wasn’t the dog the people were afraid of, but of their evil consciences, which pricked them when they remembered Dr. Snell.

The third event was Mr. Thrasher’s revival.  It began in February, and before it was over, I heard the April frogs croaking in the marshy field behind the church.  We went to all the meetings, except Veronica, who continued her custom of going only on Sunday afternoons.  Mr. Thrasher endeavored to proselyte me, but he never conversed with her.  His manner changed when he was at our house; if she appeared, the man tore away the mask of the minister.  She called him a Bible-banger, that he made the dust fly from the pulpit cushions too much to suit her; besides, he denounced sinners with vituperation, larding his piety with a grim wit which was distasteful.  He was resentful toward me, especially after he had seen her.  It was needful, he said, from my influence in Surrey, that I should become an example, and asked me if I did not think my escape from sudden death in Rosville was an indication from Providence that I was reserved for some especial work?

Surrey was never so evangelical as under his ministration, and it remained so until he was called to a larger field of usefulness, and offered a higher salary to till it.  We settled into a milder theocracy after he left us.  Mr. Park renewed his zeal, about this time, resuming his discussions; but mother paid little attention to what he said.  There were days now when she was confined to her room.  Sometimes I found her softly praying.  Once when I went there she was crying aloud, in a bitter voice, with her hands over her head.  She was her old self when she recovered, except that she was indifferent to practical details.  She sought amusement, indeed, liked to have me with her to make her laugh, and Aunt Merce was always near to pet her as of old, and so we forgot those attacks.