In one sense they were a family set apart. For Mrs. Donnard, too, unconsciously held herself in some sort as one exempt. She had come to consider religion only as it affected the congregation. The promises of the Bible were for those members who heeded the parson’s righteous words. Its threats and monitions were for those who yielded him not the due meed of reverence, spiritual and secular. Somehow, the unpropitious aspects of religion were predominant in Mrs. Donnard’s contemplation of the congregation. Like the wives of many preachers of larger pastorates and ampler opportunities, she thought the flock got more out of the parson in many ways than they paid for. The battle of life represented for her the congregation on one side and the parson on the other, and she proved a stanch partisan, a host in herself. “They _say_ so,” she would sometimes observe sarcastically, when he would detail an improvement in morals or manners resolved upon amongst them, or some great awakening within his bailiwick. “Now let’s see the _doin’_ of it.” The parson was far more enthusiastic, eloquent, and able than his helpmeet, but it may be doubted if he were endowed with so accurate a gauge of the efficacy of the good intentions of poor human nature. Sometimes she would merely remark, “I hev been hearin’ sech ez that thar from old Squair Bynum fur fifty year. Mebbe ef the Lord grants him Methus’lah’s age he may make out ter mend his ways,—leastwise some few o’ ’em.” Then she would burst out singing as she went about her household avocations, “The day o’ jedgmint’s on the way!” In this acrimony between herself and her husband’s charge, she must have experienced a great satisfaction to be so sure that all their misdeeds and shortcomings would be so severely visited upon them, and so actively rued in fire and brimstone,—for Mrs. Donnard’s faith was very complete. Somehow it had strangely discharged itself of personality. She thought no more of her own soul than if she had none to be saved. Salvation was not on her lips. Religion was an engine chiefly valuable in keeping the congregation strung up to properly perform its duties toward the parson. And yet her eye was single to what she conceived to be her duty. She zealously devoted herself to his interests, merging her identity in his; resenting his griefs, rejoicing in his pleasures, and entertaining his views. Jube was the only surviving child of a goodly number, and the unanimity of opinion which subsisted between the old couple suffered no lapse in their mutual persuasion of his perfection. The capacity for believing what one desires to believe is in itself a source of perennial pleasure, and the two took unimpeached joy and comfort in their colt, who nimbly demonstrated his capacity to pace despite the sober trot of his parents, who had never given themselves over to any such erratic gait.