chapter had been short, the prayer was long.  When he had ceased praying, he left the room without speaking, and betook himself to bed.  Aunt Mercy dragged me up the steep stairs, undressed me, and I crept into bed, drugged with a monotony which served but to deepen the sleep of youth and health.  When the bell rang the next morning, Aunt Mercy gave me a preparatory shake before she began to dress, and while she walked up and down the room lacing her stays entreated me to get up.

If the word lively could ever be used in reference to our life, it might be in regard to Sunday.  The well was so near the church that the house was used as an inn for the accommodation of the church-goers who lived at any distance, and who did not return home between the morning and afternoon services.  A regular set took dinner with us, and there were parties who brought lunch, which they ate off their handkerchiefs, on their knees.  It was also a watering-place for the Sunday-school scholars, who filed in troops before the pail in the well-room, and drank from the cocoanut dipper.  When the weather was warm our parlor was open, as it was to-day.  Aunt Mercy had dusted it and ornamented the hearth with bunches of lilacs in a broken pitcher.  Twelve yellow chairs, a mahogany stand, a dark rag-carpet, some speckled Pacific sea-shells on the shelf, among which stood a whale’s tooth with a drawing of a cranky ship thereon, and an ostrich’s egg that hung by a string from the ceiling, were the adornments of the room.  When we were dressed for church, we looked out of the window till the bell tolled, and the chaise of the Baxters and Sawyers had driven to the gate; then we went ourselves.  Grand’ther had preceded us, and was already in his seat.  Aunt Mercy went up to the head of the pew, a little out of breath, from the tightness of her dress, and the ordeal of the Baxter and Sawyer eyes, for the pew, though off a side aisle, was in the neighborhood of the elite of the church; a clove, however, tranquilized her.  I fixed my feet on a cricket, and examined the bonnets.  The house filled rapidly, and last of all the minister entered.  The singers began an anthem, singing in an advanced style of the art, I observed, for they shouted “Armen,” while our singers in Surrey bellowed “Amen.”  When the sermon began I settled myself into a vague speculation concerning my future days of freedom; but my dreams were disturbed by the conduct of the Hickspold boys, who were in a pew in front of us.  As in the morning, so in the afternoon and all the Sundays in the year.  The variations of the season served but to deepen the uniformity of my heartsickness.

CHAPTER IX.