So they had called a school committee meeting, and suggested to the new schoolmaster, as delicately as they could, that they were much disappointed with his general manner and appearance, but that, as he had come so far, they were graciously willing to keep him if he would consent to take a lower salary than that first agreed on.  At this the schoolmaster grew very red, and, with much stammering, he managed to make a speech.  He said that he liked the wildness and extreme beauty of the country, and the children appeared to him attractive; he did not wish to go away; and as to salary, he would take what they thought him worth.

In this way they closed the bargain with him on terms quite satisfactory to themselves.

‘But hoots,’ said the stout Macpherson as he ambled home from the meeting, ’I’ve only half a respect for a man that can’t stand up for himself;’ and this sentiment was more or less echoed by them all.

Happily, the schoolmaster did not desire society.  The minister’s wife asked him to tea occasionally; and he confided to her that, up to that time, he had always lived with his mother, and that it was because of her death that he had left his old home, where sad memories were too great a strain upon him, and come farther west.  No one else took much notice of him, partly because he took no notice of them.  At the ladies’ sewing meeting the doctor’s wife looked round the room with an injured air and asked:  ’How is it possible to ask a gentleman to tea when you know that he’ll meet you in the street next morning and won’t remember who you are?’

‘A lady who respected herself couldn’t do it,’ replied Mrs. Reid positively; and then in an undertone she remarked to herself, ’The gaby!’

Miss Ann Blakely pursed her lips and craned her thin neck over her work.  ’As to that I don’t know, Mrs. Reid; no one could visit the school, as I have done, and fail to observe that the youth of the town are more obedient than formerly.  In my opinion, a gentleman who can command the respect of the growing masculine mind——­’ She finished the sentence only by an expressive wave of her head.

‘There is much truth in Miss Blakely’s remark,’ said a timid little mother of six sons.

People married early, as a general thing, in Haven Settlement, and Miss Blakely, having been accidentally overlooked, had, before he came, indulged in some soft imaginations of her own with regard to the new schoolmaster; like others, she was disappointed in him; but she had not yet decided ‘whether,’ to use her own phrase, ’he would not, after all, be better than none.’  She poised this question in her mind with a nice balancing of reasons for and against for about three years, and the man who was thus the object of her interest continued to live peacefully, ignorant alike of hostile criticism and tender speculation.

It was a terrible day for the schoolmaster when the honest widow who lived with him as housekeeper was called by the death of a daughter-in-law to go and keep the house of her son in another town.  She could only tell of her intention two weeks before it was necessary to leave; and very earnestly did the schoolmaster consult with her in the interval as to what he could possibly do to supply her place, for servants in Haven Settlement were rare luxuries.