Social feuds raged in the Academy coteries between the collegians and the natives on account of the superior success of the former in flirtation.  The latter were not consoled by their experience that no flirtation lasted beyond the period of rustication.  Dr. Price usually had several young men fitting for college also, which fact added more piquancy to the provincial society.  In the summer riding parties were fashionable, and in the winter county balls and cotillion parties; a professor came down from Boston at this season to set up a dancing school, which was always well attended.

The secular concerns of life engaged the greatest share of the interests of its inhabitants; and although there existed social and professional dissensions, there was little sectarian spirit among them and no religious zeal.  The rich and fashionable were Unitarians.  The society owned a tumble-down church; a mild preacher stood in its pulpit and prayed and preached, sideways and slouchy.  This degree of religious vitality accorded with the habits of its generations.  Surrey and Barmouth would have howled over the Total Depravity of Rosville.  There was no probationary air about it.  Human Nature was the infallible theme there.  At first I missed the vibration of the moral sword which poised in our atmosphere.  When I felt an emotion without seeing the shadow of its edge turning toward me, I discovered my conscience, which hitherto had only been described to me.

There were churches in the town beside the Unitarian.  The Universalists had a bran-new one, and there was still another frequented by the sedimentary part of the population—­Methodists.

I toned down perfectly within three months.  Soon after my arrival at his house I became afraid of Cousin Charles.  Not that he ever said anything to justify fear of him—­he was more silent at home than elsewhere; but he was imperious, fastidious, and sarcastic with me by a look, a gesture, an inflection of his voice.  My perception of any defect in myself was instantaneous with his discovery of it.  I fell into the habit of guessing each day whether I was to offend or please him, and then into that of intending to please.  An intangible, silent, magnetic feeling existed between us, changing and developing according to its own mysterious law, remaining intact in spite of the contests between us of resistance and defiance.  But my feeling died or slumbered when I was beyond the limits of his personal influence.  When in his presence I was so pervaded by it that whether I went contrary to the dictates of his will or not I moved as if under a pivot; when away my natural elasticity prevailed, and I held the same relation to others that I should have held if I had not known him.  This continued till the secret was divined, and then his influence was better remembered.