Little did Mary Pratt suspect the truth; but habit, or covetousness, or some vague expectation that the girl might yet contract a marriage that would enable him to claim all his advances, had induced the deacon never to bestow a cent on her education, or dress, or pleasures of any sort, that the money was not regularly charged against her, in that nefarious work that he called his "day-book." As for the self-respect, and the feelings of caste, which prevent a gentleman from practising any of these tradesmen's tricks, the deacon knew nothing of them. He would have set the man down as a fool who deferred to any notions so unprofitable. With him, not only every _man_, but every _thing_ "had its price," and usually it was a good price, too. At the very moment when our tale opens there stood charged in his book, against his unsuspecting and affectionate niece, items in the way of schooling, dress, board, and pocket-money, that amounted to the considerable sum of one thousand dollars, money fairly expended. The deacon was only intensely mean and avaricious, while he was as honest as the day. Not a cent was overcharged; and to own the truth, Mary was so great a favourite with him, that most of his charges against _her_ were rather of a reasonable rate than otherwise. Chapter II. "Marry, I saw your niece do more favours To the count's serving-man, than ever she bestowed Upon me; I saw it i' the orchard." _Twelfth Night._ On the Sunday in question, Deacon Pratt went to meeting as usual, the building in which divine service was held that day, standing less than two miles from his residence; but, instead of remaining for the afternoon's preaching, as was his wont, he got into his one-horse chaise, the vehicle then in universal use among the middle classes, though now so seldom seen, and skirred away homeward as fast as an active, well-fed and powerful switch-tailed mare could draw him; the animal being accompanied in her rapid progress by a colt of some three months' existence. The residence of the deacon was unusually inviting for a man of his narrow habits. It stood on the edge of a fine apple-orchard, having a door-yard of nearly two acres in its front. This door-yard, which had been twice mown that summer, was prettily embellished with flowers, and was shaded by four rows of noble cherry-trees. The house itself was of wood, as is almost uniformly the case in Suffolk, where little stone is to be found, and where brick constructions are apt to be thought damp: but, it was a respectable edifice, with five windows in front, and of two stories. The siding was of unpainted cedar-shingles; and, although the house had been erected long previously to the revolution, the siding had been renewed but once, about ten years before the opening of our tale, and the whole building was in a perfect state of repair. The thrift of the deacon rendered him careful, and he was thoroughly convinced of the truth of the