Nor was the spinster sister without a degree of cultivation which commended her to the more intellectual people of Ashfield. She was a reader of "Rokeby" and of Miss Austen's novels, of Josephus and of Rollin's "Ancient History." The Miss Hapgoods, who were the blue-stockings of the place, were charmed to have such an addition to the cultivated circle of the parish. To make the success of Miss Johns still more decided, she brought with her a certain knowledge of the conventionalisms of the city, by reason of her occasional visits to her sister Mabel, (now Mrs. Brindlock of Greenwich Street,) which to many excellent women gave larger assurance of her position and dignity than all besides. Before the first year of her advent had gone by, it was quite plain that she was to become one of the prominent directors of the female world of Ashfield. Only in the parsonage itself did her influence find its most serious limitations,--and these in connection with the boy Reuben. XV. There is a deep emotional nature in the lad, which, by the time he has reached his eighth year,--Miss Eliza having now been in the position of mistress of the household a twelvemonth,--works itself off in explosive tempests of feeling, with which the prim spinster has but faint sympathy. No care could be more studious and complete than that with which she looks after the boy's wardrobe and the ordering of his little chamber; his supply of mittens, of stockings, and of underclothing is always of the most ample; nay, his caprices of the table are not wholly overlooked, and she hopes to win upon him by the dishes that are most toothsome; but, however grateful for the moment, his boyish affections can never make their way with any force or passionate flow through the stately proprieties of manner with which the spinster aunt is always hedged about.