“Yes, to be sure; if one only knew the proper way to do it, sir. But missie slips away so quick like; I never can get hold of her. And then the mistress has that fellow Calvert over here, almost every Sunday.” “Aha!” cried the Grower, with a knowing wink, “that is her little game, is it now? That is why she has aches and pains, and such a very sad want of tone, and failure of power in her leaders! Leave it to me, lad--that you may--I’ll soon put a stop to that. A pill-grinder at Applewood farm indeed! But I did not know you was jealous!” “Jealous! No, no, sir; I scorn the action. But when there are two, you know, why, it makes it not half so nice for one, you know.” Squire Lovejoy, however, soon discovered that he had been a little too confident in pledging himself to keep the maltster’s rival off the premises. For Mrs. Lovejoy, being a very resolute woman in a little way, at once began to ache all over, and so effectually to groan, that instead of having the doctor once a-week, she was obliged to have him at least three times. And it was not very long before the young physician’s advice was sought for a still more interesting patient. For the daughter and prime delight of the house, the bright sweet-tempered Mabel, instead of freshening with the spring, and budding with new roses, began to get pale, and thin, and listless, and to want continually to go to church, and not to care about her dinner. Her eagerness for divine service, however, could only be gratified on Sundays: for the practice of reading the prayers to the pillars twelve times a-week was not yet in vogue. The novelty, therefore, of Mabel’s desire made the symptom all the more alarming; and her father perceived that so strange a case called peremptorily for medical advice. But she, for a long time, did nothing but quote against himself his own opinion of the professors of the healing art; while she stoutly denied the existence on her part of any kind of malady. And so, for a while, she escaped the doctor.