He wanders away after school-hours to the home of the Elderkins,--Phil and he being sworn friends, and the good mother of Phil always having ready for him a beaming look of welcome and a tender word or two that somehow always find their way straight to his heart. He loiters with Larkin, too, by the great stable-yard of the inn, though it is forbidden ground. He breaks in upon the precise woman's rule of punctuality sadly; many a cold dish he eats sulkily,--she sitting bolt upright in her place at the table, looking down at him with glances which are every one a punishment. Other times he is straying in the orchard at the hour of some home-duty, and the active spinster goes to seek him, and not threateningly, but with an assured step and a firm grip upon the hand of the loiterer, which he knows not whether to count a favor or a punishment, (and she as much at a loss, so inextricably interwoven are her notions of duty and of kindness,) leads him homeward, plying him with stately precepts upon the sin of negligence, and with earnest story of the dreadful fate which is sure to overtake all bad boys who do not obey and keep "by the rules"; and she instances those poor lads who were eaten by the bears, of whom she has read to him the story in the Old Testament. "Who was it they called 'bald-head,' Reuben? Elisha or Elijah?" He, in no mood for reply, is sulkily beating off the daisies with his feet, as she drags him on; sometimes hanging back, with impotent, yet concealed struggle, which she--not deigning to notice--overcomes with even sharper step, and plies him the more closely with the dire results of badness,--has not finished her talk, indeed, when they reach the door-step and enter. There he, fuming now with that long struggle, fuming the more because he has concealed it, makes one violent discharge with a great frown on his little face, "You're an ugly old thing, and I don't like you one bit!" Esther, good soul, within hearing of it, lifts her hands in apparent horror, but inwardly indulges in a wicked chuckle over the boy's spirit. But the minister has heard him, too, and gravely summons the offender into his study. "My son, Reuben, this is very wrong." And the boy breaks into a sob at this stage, which is a great relief. "My boy, you ought to love your aunt." "Why ought I?" says he. "Why? why? Don't you know she's very good to you, and takes excellent care of you, and hears you say your catechism every Saturday? You ought to love her." "But I can't make myself love her, if I don't," says the boy. "It is your duty to love her, Reuben; and we can all do our duty." Even the staid clergyman enjoys the boy's discomfiture under so orthodox a proposition. Miss Johns, however, breaks in here, having overheard the latter part of the talk:-- "No, Benjamin, I wish no love that is given from a sense of duty. Reuben sha'n't be forced into loving his Aunt Eliza."