Mrs. Jones had indeed a very satisfactory capability in all domestic processes; her bread was of the whitest and finest, her culinary skill above mediocrity, and she was an accomplished laundress. But so much were her spirits affected by the construction that might possibly be put on her position in the family that she required soothing attentions and expressions of satisfaction and confidence every hour of the day to keep her at all comfortable. She had stipulated expressly to be received at the family table, and, further than this, to be brought into the room and introduced to all callers; and, this being done, demeaned herself in a manner so generally abused and melancholy that poor Mrs. Cushing could not but feel that the burden which had been taken off from her muscles had been thrown with double weight upon her nerves. After a call of any of the "town-hill" aristocracy, Mrs. Jones would be sure to be found weeping in secret places, because 'Mrs. Colonel Davenport had looked down on her,' or the Governor's lady 'didn't speak to her,' and she 'should like to know what such proud folks was goin' to do when they got to heaven!' Then there was always an implication that if ministers only did their duty all these distinctions of rank would cease, and everybody be just as good as everybody else. The poor body had never even dreamed of a kingdom of heaven where the Highest was "as him that serveth;" and what with Mrs. Jones's moans, and her tears, and her frequent sick headaches, accompanied by abundant use of camphor, Mrs. Cushing, in some desperate moments, felt as if she would rather die doing her own work than wear herself out in the task of conciliating a substitute. Then, though not a serious evil, it certainly was somewhat disagreeable to observe Mrs. Jones's statistical talents and habits of minute inspection, and to feel that she was taking notes which would put all the parish in possession of precise information as to the condition of Mrs. Cushing's tablecloths, towels, napkins, and all the minutiæ of her housekeeping arrangements. There is, of course, no sin or harm in such particularity; but almost every lady prefers the shades of poetic obscurity to soften the details of her domestic interior. In those days, when the minister was the central object of thought in the parish, it was specially undesirable that all this kind of information should be distributed, since there were many matrons who had opinions all ready made as to the proper manner in which a minister's wife should expend his salary and order his household.