He had nothing to say; but only looked back into that cold gray eye, as she lifted his chin with her gloved hand.
"Benjamin, there's a strong look of the Handbys; but it's your forehead. He's a little man, I hope," and she patted him on the head.
Still Reuben looked--wonderingly--at her shining silk dress, at her hat, at the little curls on either temple, at the guard-chain which hung from her neck with a glittering watch-key upon it, at the bright buckle in her belt, and most of all at the gray eye which seemed to look on him from far away. And with the same stare of wonderment, he followed her up and down throughout the house.
At night, Esther, who has a chamber near him, creeps in to say good-night to the lad, and asks,--
"Do you like her, Ruby, boy? Do you like your Aunt Eliza?"
"I d'n know," says Reuben, "She says she likes good boys; don't you like bad uns, Esther?"
"But you're not _very_ bad," says Esther, whose orthodoxy does not forbid kindly praise.
"Dear heart!" and the good creature gives the boy a great hug; it could not have been warmer, if he had been her child.
The household speedily felt the presence of the new comer. Her precision, her method, her clear, sharp voice,--never raised in anger, never falling to tenderness,--ruled the establishment. Under all the cheeriness of the old management, there had been a sad lack of any economic system, by reason of which the minister was constantly overrunning his little stipend, and making awkward appeals from time to time to the Parish Committee for advances. A small legacy that had befallen the late Mrs. Johns, and which had gone to the purchase of the parsonage, had brought relief at a very perplexing crisis; but against all similar troubles Miss Johns set her face most resolutely. There was a daily examination of butchers' and grocers' accounts, that had been previously unknown to the household. The kitchen was placed under strict regimen, into the observance of which the good Esther slipped, not so much from love of it, as from total inability to cope with the magnetic authority of the new mistress. Nor was she harsh in her manner of command.
"Esther, my good woman, it will be best, I think, to have breakfast a little more promptly,--at half past six, we will say,--so that prayers may be over and the room free by eight; the minister, you know, must have his morning in his study undisturbed."