The Assistant Spikeman, as he passed the wayfarers, returned their demure salutations with solemn dignity, as became one in high station, and in whose ears was sounding a call to a meeting of the congregation.  Thus exchanging greetings, he proceeded to his house, where, entering the room used by the family as a sitting apartment, he hung up his hat and took a seat.  But his agitation did not permit him to remain still, and almost immediately he arose and began to pace the floor.  Hearing presently advancing footsteps, he dropped into a chair, and leaning back and shutting his eyes, assumed an expression of pain and lassitude.  In a moment the door of the room was opened, and a comely woman of middle age entered, dressed for the “meeting.”

“Dear heart,” she exclaimed, “here have Eveline and I been waiting for thee this quarter of an hour.  You must not, if you are so late, complain of me hereafter, when the lacet of my bodice troubles me, or the plaits of my hair refuse to keep their place, and so I delay thee unreasonably, as thou sayest, though it is all to honor thee; for would it not be unbeseeming for the help-meet of a worshipful Assistant to appear like a common mechanic’s wife?  But art thou ill?” she added, observing his air of dejection, and instantly changing the tone that had in it something of reproach into one of anxiety; “then will I remain at home to comfort thee.”

“No, dame,” said her husband, “there is no cause to detain thee from the sanctuary.  The godly Mr. Cotton holds forth to-day, and it would be a sinful neglect of privileges.  I feel not well myself, and must, therefore, for thy sake, as well as my own, deny myself the refreshment of the good man’s counsel.  Thou shalt go, to edify me on thy return with what thou mayest remember of his discourse.”

But the kind heart of dame Spikeman was not so easily to be diverted from its purpose, and she persisted, with some pertinacity, in a determination to remain, until her husband laid his commands upon her to attend the lecture.

“I will obey,” she then said, “sithence it is thy wish; and is it not written, Adam was first made, and then Eve; and I will pray for thee, dear heart, in the congregation, that He will keep thee in all thy ways, nor let the enemy approach to harm or to tempt thee.”

Spikeman winced, and perhaps his conscience pricked him at the moment, but he betrayed no confusion as he replied: 

“I thank thee, sweet duck, and may the Lord recompense thy love a thousand fold.  But hasten, now, for it would ill-become the wife of my bosom to lag in attendance on the lecture.  Meanwhile, I will meditate on the holy volume, and comfort myself as a Christian man may.”

Dame Spikeman’s ample fardingale swept the sides of the doorway as she turned to take a last look at her husband over her shoulder—­a look that contained as much of suspicion as of affection.  He must be, indeed, a paragon of hypocrisy who can conceal himself from his wife, however dull she may be, and the faculties of the dame were as sharp as those of most of her sex.