Throughout the summer, Cousin Placidia had been more than ever a subject of irritation and distress to Aunt Dorothy. The successes of Montrose in Scotland, followed by the plunderings of the king's troops in our own counties, had once more caused her to feel much "exercised" as to which was the right side. In February, after the execution of Archbishop Laud, Mr. Nicholls had obediently substituted the Directory of Worship for the Common Prayer, sorely trying thereby Aunt Dorothy's predilections for unwritten, or rather unprinted prayers; Mr. Nicholls' supplications not having, in her opinion, either unction or fire, being in fact, she said, nothing but the old Liturgy minced and sent up cold. Her only comfort was in the trust that sifting days were at hand. (The Triers had not yet been appointed.) But what vexed Aunt Dorothy's soul even more than any ecclesiastical "trimmings," was what she regarded as the gradual eating up of Placidia's heart by the rust of hoarded wealth. Placidia had at that time an additional reason to justify herself for any amount of straitening and sparing, in the expectation of the birth of her first child. This prospect opened a new field for her economies and for Aunt Dorothy's anxieties. Even the general devastations of the country, which opened every door and every heart wide to the sufferers, only effected the narrowest possible opening in Placidia's stores. Her health, she said, obviously prevented her receiving any strangers into the house; and it was little indeed that a poor parson, with a family to provide for, and nothing but income to depend on, and the certainty of receiving scarcely any tithes the next season, could have to spare. Such as she had, said she, she gave willingly. There was a stack of hay but slightly damaged by getting heated. And there was some preserved meat, a little strong perhaps from keeping, but quite wholesome and palatable with a little extra salt. These she most gladly bestowed. Aunt Dorothy was in despair, and made one last solemn appeal. "Placidia," she said, "a child will shut up your heart and be a curse to you, if you let it shut your doors against the poor; until at last who knows what door may be shut on you?" But Placidia was impregnable. "Aunt Dorothy," she said, with mild imperturbability, "everything may be made either a curse or a blessing. But to those who are in the covenant everything is a blessing." "Sister Gretel," said Aunt Dorothy, afterwards, "I see no way of escape for her. The mercies of God's providence and the doctrines of His grace freeze on that poor woman's heart, until the ice is so thick that the sunshine itself can do nothing but just thaw the surface, and make the next day's ice smoother and harder." Aunt Gretel looked up.