The other old maid who occupied a prominent position at Dullerton, and was on friendly terms with the grenadier, was Miss Bulpit. It would be difficult to meet with a greater contrast between any two people than between Miss Bulpit and Miss Merrywig. The latter talked in italics, emphasizing all the small words of her discourse, so as to throw everything out of joint. Miss Bulpit spoke “in mournful numbers,” brought out her sentences as slowly as a funeral knell, and was altogether funereal in her aspect. She was tall and lank, and wore a black silk wig, pasted in melancholy braids on either side of her face--a perfect foil to the gay little curls that danced on Miss Merrywig’s forehead like so many little bells keeping time to her tongue. Miss Bulpit was enthroned on a pedestal of one thousand five hundred pounds a year, and attended by all the substantial honors that spring from such a foundation. She was fully alive to the advantages of her position, and had never married from the fear of being sought more for her money than for herself. So, at least, rumor has it. Mr. Tobes, the Wesleyan clergyman of the next parish, whose awakening sermons decoyed the black sheep of the surrounding folds to him, had tried for the prize for more than seven years, but in vain. Miss Bulpit smiled with benevolent condescension on his assiduities, allowed him to meet her at the railway station and to hand her a bouquet occasionally; but this was the extent of his reward. He persevered, however; and, when Miss Bulpit shook her black silk head at him with a melancholy smile and a reproof for wasting on her the precious time that belonged to his flock, Mr. Tobes would reply that the laborer was worthy of his hire, and that no man could live without an occasional recompense for his labors.