The weather was now cold, and we congregated about the fire; for there was no other comfortable room in the house.  One afternoon, when I was digging in Aunt Mercy’s geranium pots, and picking off the dead leaves, two deacons came to visit grand’ther, and, hovering over the fire with him, complained of the lukewarmness of the church brethren in regard to the spiritual condition of the Society.  A shower of grace was needed; there were reviving symptoms in some of the neighboring churches, but none in Barmouth.  Something must be done—­a fast day appointed, or especial prayer-meetings held.  This was on Saturday; the next day the ceremony of the Lord’s Supper would take place, and grand’ther recommended that the minister should be asked to suggest something to the church which might remove it from its hardness.

“Are the vessels scoured, Mercy?” he asked, after the deacons had gone.

“I have no sand.”

He presently brought her a biggin of fine white sand, which brought the shore of Surrey to my mind’s eye.  I followed her as she carried it to the well-room, where I saw, on the meal-chest, two large pewter plates, two flagons of the same metal, and a dozen or more cups, some of silver, and marked with the owner’s name.  They were soon cleaned.  Then she made a fire in the oven, and mixed loaves in a peculiar shape, and launched them into the oven.  She watched the bread carefully, and took it out before it had time to brown.

“This work belongs to the deacons’ wives,” she said; “but it has been done in this house for years.  The bread is not like ours—­it is unleavened.”

Grand’ther carried it into the church after she had cut it with a sharp knife so that at the touch it would fall apart into square bits.  When the remains were brought back, I went to the closet, where they were deposited, and took a piece of the bread, eating it reflectively, to test its solemnizing powers.  I felt none, and when Aunt Mercy boiled the remnants with milk for a pudding, the sacred ideality of the ceremony I had seen at church was destroyed for me.

Was it a pity that my life was not conducted on Nature’s plan, who shows us the beautiful, while she conceals the interior?  We do not see the roots of her roses, and she hides from us her skeletons.

November passed, with its Thanksgiving—­the sole day of all the year which grand’ther celebrated, by buying a goose for dinner, which goose was stewed with rye dumplings, that slid over my plate like glass balls.  Sally and Ruth betook themselves to their farm, and hybernated.  December came, and with it a young woman named Caroline, to learn the tailor’s trade.  Lively and pretty, she changed our atmosphere.  She broke the silence of the morning by singing the “Star-spangled Banner,” or the “Braes of Balquhither,” and disturbed the monotony of the evenings by making molasses candy, which grand’ther ate, and which seemed to have a mollifying influence.