There was no very great difficulty in the matter. Jared Pellet, under protest, wrote a note to the Rev. John Gray, the vicar, telling him that a friend--he haggled a great deal over that word "friend"--would be glad to undertake the duties of pew-opener in the place of the defunct Mrs Nimmer; and the vicar mentioned the matter to his friend Mr Timson, churchwarden and tea-dealer, and both agreed that they would be most happy to oblige Mr Jared Pellet in the matter. Then Mr Timson had an interview with Jared, and told him personally he would be glad to give his weight to the matter, if Jared's friend was a worthy suitable woman. Now there came a hitch in the smoothness, for Jared went home and told his wife that that red-faced old humbug Purkis had played double; and, in fact, he had gone head-dabbing into the presence of the vicar and churchwarden to tell them he should be glad if the post lately occupied by Mrs Nimmer could be conferred upon a friend of his. But explanations followed: the two principal candidates were found to be one and the same; and Mrs Tim Ruggles was duly appointed to a post, for whose proper filling she seemed to have been specially manufactured by Dame Nature. She, that is to say Mrs Tim Ruggles, glided, as it were, into the correct rut upon the very first Sunday--coming to St Runwald's in a mournful-hued dress--a shot putty and soot, while a tightly-fitting cap crowned her head--a cap like a white sarcenet raised pie, all tiny bows and tuckers--none of your fly-away servant-girl style of headdress, but firmly tied beneath her chin with silken strings. Then, too, a prim-white muslin handkerchief encircled her neck, with ends pinned across, and descending to be hidden away and protected by exceedingly stiff, dark-coloured jean stays, whose presence was manifested to the ear of the world at large by divers creaking cracklings, when, by rare chance, Mrs Ruggles slightly bent her fierce body--to the eye, by a little peephole, afforded where one hook in the back of the dress had an antipathy to its kindred loop.