Miss Prissy, after a while, commenced in a mysterious tone.
"Miss Scudder, I know folks like me shouldn't have their eyes open too wide, but then I can't help noticing some things. Did you see the Doctor's face when we was talking to him about Mary? Why, he colored all up and the tears came into his eyes. It's my belief that that blessed man worships the ground she treads on. I don't mean _worships_, either,--'cause that would be wicked, and he's too good a man to make a graven image of anything,--but it's clear to see that there a'n't anybody in the world like Mary to him. I always did think so; but I used to think Mary was such a little poppet--that she'd do better for--Well, you know, I thought about some younger man;--but, laws, now I see how she rises up to be ahead of everybody, and is so kind of solemn-like. I can't but see the leadings of Providence. What a minister's wife she'd be, Miss Scudder!--why, all the ladies coming out of prayer-meeting were speaking of it. You see, they want the Doctor to get married;--it seems more comfortable-like to have ministers married; one feels more free to open their exercises of mind; and as Miss Deacon Twitchel said to me,--'If the Lord had made a woman o' purpose, as he did for Adam, he wouldn't have made her a bit different from Mary Scudder.' Why, the oldest of us would follow her lead,--'cause she goes before us without knowing it."
"I feel that the Lord has greatly blessed me in such a child," said Mrs. Scudder, "and I feel disposed to wait the leadings of Providence."
"Just exactly," said Miss Prissy, giving a shake to her silk; "and as Miss Twitchel said, in this case every providence seems to p'int. I felt dreadfully for her along six months back; but now I see how she's been brought out, I begin to see that things are for the best, perhaps, after all. I can't help feeling that Jim Marvyn is gone to heaven, poor fellow! His father is a deacon,--and such a good man!--and Jim, though he did make a great laugh wherever he went, and sometimes laughed where he hadn't ought to, was a noble-hearted fellow. Now, to be sure, as the Doctor says, 'amiable instincts a'n't true holiness'; but then they are better than unamiable ones, like Simeon Brown's. I do think, if that man is a Christian, he is a dreadful ugly one; he snapped me short up about my change, when he settled with me last Tuesday; and if I hadn't felt that it was a sinful rising, I should have told him I'd never put foot in his house again; I'm glad, for my part, he's gone out of our church. Now Jim Marvyn was like a prince to poor people; and I remember once his mother told him to settle with me, and he gave me 'most double, and wouldn't let me make change. 'Confound it all, Miss Prissy,' says he, 'I wouldn't stitch as you do from morning to night for double that money.' Now I know we can't do anything to recommend ourselves to the Lord, but then I can't help feeling some sorts of folks must be by nature more pleasing to Him than others. David was a man after God's own heart, and he was a generous, whole-souled fellow, like Jim Marvyn, though he did get carried away by his spirits sometimes and do wrong things; and so I hope the Lord saw fit to make Jim one of the elect. We don't ever know what God's grace has done for folks. I think a great many are converted when we know nothing about it, as Miss Twitchel told poor old Miss Tyrel, who was mourning about her son, a dreadful wild boy, who was killed falling from mast-head; she says, that from the mast-head to the deck was time enough for divine grace to do the work."