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and yellow, from pale strawberry syrup, | flasks and Turkish spice-boxes. But Mrs. through ruby currant jelly, to Ethiop Honeyman's specialty was evidently pickblackberry jam, and from straw-colored nectarines to orange marmalade and flamecolored pomegranates! Then the dried fruits from the Indies-dates and raisins, with figs, and other strange fruits with unpronounceable names, Zante currants, and purple prunes. Here were queer pots with Oriental decoration, containing preserved ginger, japanned boxes filled with the tea of the mandarins, wicker-covered

les. Here were jars of sweet pickles of her own manufacture, with chowchow and catsups, olives, limes, and mangoes, gherkins, Spanish onions, piccalilli, capers, nasturtiums, and mushrooms. Evidently either the Rev. Mr. Honeyman or his spouse had been very fond of pickles. I say had been, for when I saw the fruitroom it was shown me by their descendants, the Rev. Mr. and Mrs. Honeyman

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"IT IS ALL A MISTAKE, MY FRIEND, A GRIEVOUS MISTAKE."-[SEE PAGE 884.]

Condita."

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Honeyman delighted to sit here surround- | characters, were the words, "Salgama ed by the triumphs of housewifely skill, for on the mantel lay a little volume, the Psalms of David, with her name upon the fly-leaf. Perhaps she sat here while she stoned her raisins or prepared the other fruits, and, with her petticoats tucked neatly about her, sang:

Or,

"Green as the Leaf, and ever fair,
Shall my Profession shine,
While Fruits of Holiness appear
Like Clusters on the Vine."

"The Grove, the Garden, and the Field A thousand joyful Blessings yield.

Grandfather hung the letter there," said the eldest of the granddaughters. "He used to call it his sweet pickle, and to say that it deserved a place in the fruitroom. Salgama condita was his translation into Latin of the word pickle."

Although the ink was faded, the writing was still legible, and I read without difficulty the following quaint love-letter: "Highly respected and best-beloved friend, Mistress Tarleton:

"You are doubtless acquainted with the connection of friendship I have for a considerable time

formed and cherished for all the lovely members of your charming family. That friendship has blossomed into esteem and love for yourself, which I humbly trust may be reciprocated and perpetuated

in the ties of matrimony. A period has now arrived when, if ever, I shall be able to fulfill the duties of a citizen, a householder, and a husband. While my mind and outward circumstances are thus situated, you will not, I trust, think me too hasty if I request as speedy a gratification of my hopes as is consistent with the proprieties of the

situation.

"Should your decision be favorable to my pretensions, you will kindly hand me a written assur

ance of the same as soon as circumstances will al

low, and I will then do myself the pleasure of addressing your honored father.

"I am, dear lady, your very obliged friend and humble servant, SYLVANUS HONEYMAN.

"To the Honorable Mistress Tarleton, Government House, Fredericton, New Brunswick."

possessed by his eldest daughter, Deborah, quaint mixture of the housewife and theologian! Even the Bishop enjoyed a

discussion with her, and her cheeks would glow and her eyes sparkle until she was nearly as handsome as her younger sisters, while she discussed Pelagianism so ably with him from behind the coffeeurn-her place since the death of his loved wife ten years agone.

His look of amusement changed to one of pride as his glance fell on Pen's portrait, painted by Gainsborough; for Pen was the beauty of the family, and she carried her head as though already a coronet rested upon it, and he remembered how she had entertained the most distinguished personages at his home in BrompThis was the letter. Since it had ap-ton Row, in a way that made them grateparently met with success, I wondered ful for her condescension. much that the Rev. Mr. Honeyman should have suggested its involving him in a sweet pickle.

Becoming subsequently intimately connected with the grandchildren of the writer of the letter, the explanation was given me in the story of their reverend ancestor's life in the new colony of New Brunswick. As I have changed the names, I feel it no breach of confidence to give to the world the somewhat peculiar history of Mr. Honeyman.

PART I.-HIS SISTERS-IN-LAW.

Peggy, his third daughter, was by nature an artist; the very wools knotted negligently together, and lying on her crewel-frame, were selected with such nice taste that they presented a pleasant study in harmony of color.

The Governor was proud of Debby, of Pen and Peggy, but Dolly was his favorite, for hers was the most affectionate nature. He could see no reminder of her now but a volume of verses half hidden under the sofa cushion, and-yes, that twisted and partly burned billet-doux on the hearth could have been left there by no one but sentimental and imprudent Dolly.

Patty, the youngest and least attractive of the sisters, was just fourteen, and as yet manifested no penchant except for the nibbling of dainties. Her pockets gummed together with sweets, and her passage from room to room easily traced by a trail of nut shells, apple cores, and cake crumbs, she was at once the despair of her father and of orderly Debby.

It was on a bright Sunday of a chilly New Brunswick June that the Governor of the then new province shut himself in his sunny south parlor, secure of a quiet morning while the girls were at church. Dozing in his great lazy-chair, with the vista of the graperies seen through the glass door, he could, with a volume of Petrarch in his hand, fancy himself in Avignon; for the Governor was a scholar and a traveller, and his daughters shared his tastes. He felt a pleasant sense of companionship in the room in which he sat, for there were reminders of his daughters all about him. Here was Debby's low sewing-chair, with a figure holding a distaff in marquetry let into the back, the The girls fluttered into the room after word "Diligentia" beneath, and by its service, chattering with bewildering unaside her orderly little work-basket, with animity. The Governor listened with a puzcopy of Jeremy Taylor's Ductor Dubitan- zled expression; he could only make out tium slipped between a pair of his own that this was a protest against the sermon. hose, neatly darned by Debby's nimble "So unphilosophical," said Debby, smoothfingers. The Governor smiled as he no- ing the satin strings of her puce-colored ticed the odd juxtaposition. What a sub-hat, and setting every fibre of its handtle, logical, metaphysical mind was that some ostrich plume in place with careful

VOL. LX.-No. 360.-56

The Governor described his five daughters, by saying that Debby was dogmatic, Pen aristocratic, Peggy artistic, Dolly romantic, and Patty nothing if not gastronomic.

precision. "There was naught of method in it. He did but utter forth his ideas as they came to him. His reasoning was like unto Peggy's wools, naught but a maze and a tangle."

example of what you would have me attain unto ?"

"And yet his outward man was comely," pleaded Dolly, who had seated herself on her father's knee, and was braiding together the curls of his periwig. "He reminded me of Sir Charles Grandison in the romance.

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"Then, as Shakspeare puts it," suggested the Governor, "the new curate, 'should I anatomize him to thee as he is...... Alas, he is too young: yet he looks successfully.""

It was surprising how soon the Rev. Mr. Honeyman gained the good opinion of the Governor's family. While the young ladies unanimously depreciated his talent, they found him possessed of certain unselfish qualities agreeable in a brother, or, as Patty said, in a brotherin-law. Patty had hit upon exactly the right term. None of the girls was sufficiently interested in the young curate to regard him as her own possible future, but each had confessed to herself that it would be very pleasant to have him connected with the family as the husband of her favorite sister. Patty alone stood aloof, a disinterested spectator, serenely munching pickled limes and rock-candy.

PART II.-FINISHING THE MINISTER.

The girls had also decided to supply what was lacking in the young minister's education by giving him private lessons each in her own particular specialty.

Peggy began by beseeching him to make his sermons more "artistical."

"Will you please enlighten me as to your meaning?" replied Mr. Honeyman. "I am minded soon to preach a series of discourses on St. Paul. Can I make them artistical?"

"Right easily. St. Paul journeyed to all those treasuries of art-Ephesus, Corinth, Athens. You can thus most appropriately expound to us the architecture and mythology of those cities. I will lend you for your furtherance in this matter a new German work by Winckelmann.”

"But, Mistress Peggy, I am not skilled in German, or in any other outlandish tongue, save only Latin and a smattering of Greek. Could you not advance me still further in this undertaking by yourself writing out an artistical sermon as an

"That will I do most heartily, upon one condition-that you will deliver to your hearers these sermons in such guise as I shall indite them."

Mr. Honeyman, with some little demur, assented to this condition, and shortly after this he heard one day, as he passed the village church, some one singing so clearly sweet that he was forced to enter. It was Pen, accompanying herself upon the organ, while a negro servitor worked the bellows.

"You have a marvellous fine voice, Mistress Pen," he said. "If I could read with the same expression that you sing, it would give a new power to my ministry.” ""Tis but an acquired accomplishment. You should take lessons." "Will you be

Pen ?" "Gladly.

my teacher, Mistress

Give me the prayer-book, and let me, standing there by the altar rail, show you how I think the Creed ought to be read."

There was something awe-inspiring in her very presence before she began her reading. A clinging black velvet dress draped her figure in simple folds, while a white lace scarf fell in two long white lines, with exactly the effect of a stole, down the front of her gown. Her face was pale and deeply serious, her measured walk added to the impression of dignity, and when she did speak, the words assumed an importance, a grandeur, which he had never before attached to them.

There were no flourishes of elocution, no evident attempts at impressiveness. Her manner was very simple, but she gave him the impression of one supremely in earnest.

"You mind me of one of the early confessors," he said. "I can imagine that the young Bishop Timothy resembled you, or Chrysostom of the golden mouth. Where did you receive this inspiration ?"

"From Shakspeare. I feel a drawing to his stately parts. Portia as a Doctor of Laws, and Cardinal Wolsey."

The Rev. Mr. Honeyman experienced a pang. She had seemed so rapt, so absorbed, as she uttered the Credo, that he had not realized that this was only acting. Nevertheless, he allowed her to continue the lesson toward its close; a mocking laugh rang though the building. Looking upward through the open sash of one

of the windows, they saw the hoydenish | mirth-provoking and frivolous tales; will Patty peering at them from the branches you not, sir, have some serious converse of a cherry-tree just outside. with her?"

"I came here to get the cherries," was her explanation. "I knew the boys would devour them if I did not. Want some?"

Pen fascinated the Rev. Mr. Honeyman strangely. He could not understand her, but he yielded to the glamour, and it was in hopes of seeing her that he accepted the Governor's invitation to dine upon the next Sabbath. But Pen had gone to St. John with Dolly for a short visit, and he found himself after dinner remanded to a tête-à-tête with Debby. Patty sat in the window watching him with eyes that apparently saw not, while she munched filberts and raisins, with which she had filled her pockets at dessert. He turned his back upon her with a shudder of unconquerable disgust. Debby sat smoothing her "laylack" satin gown. "I have a book which I would like to lend you, Mr. Honeyman, which I will bring you presently," she said, rising and leaving the room. Mr. Honeyman mastered his aversion, and turning to Patty, began, "In regard to the instruction in elocution-"

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"Oh! I know what you have it on your mind to say," interrupted the provoking child. "I have no malevolence. I would not divulge a secret concerning her, for she has promised to fetch me a box of Smyrna fig paste from St. John. I never gossip about my sisters. Peggy has a secret now. She locks herself in the room, and stops the key-hole with cotton. I shall find out what she is doing some time, though I never pry. So farewell; trust your secret to me. But if you

To this Mr. Honeyman agreed, and, with inward weariness, took his departure. As he left the door, Peggy appeared, and slipped into his hand a roll of MSS.-the lectures on St. Paul. He read them in his study, with increasing surprise and delight. "She is the gifted one of the family," he thought. "What would not I give to write like that?" gave the lectures in regular course on the evenings of the following Sabbaths, receiving many compliments in regard to them from his congregation. Even the Bishop was compared with him, much to that prelate's disadvantage.

He

One afternoon Mr. Honeyman met an old Indian woman selling spruce gum and maple sugar, wrapped in birch bark decorated with porcupine quill work. He bought several packages, and carried the sordid bribes to the Government House. He found Patty in the park describing a circle, with a plum-tree for a centre.

66

Gum!" she exclaimed, with delight. "How heavenly! But keep the maple sugar; it is without doubt half sand. And I have lately had a surfeit of sweets, for Peggy has given me a jar of honey. I did but piece together the scraps in her wastepaper basket." And striking a heroic attitude, the plague rehearsed: "Pallas Athena's diamond eyes flashed angrily through the gloom of the Parthenon, lighting the ivory pallor of her face, as she heard from the neighboring hill of Mars the voice of a stranger proclaiming a faith which—'"

"Patty! Patty! not so loud. Whereshould chance on any liquorice or chew-fore did Peggy give you the honey, if not ing-gum-"

She was gone, and Mistress Debby stood in her place, her arms filled with books. She handed him one bound in shabby leather, saying: "This is a most precious volume, the Instructiones Pastorum. Here is another on Antinomianism, and one on Original Sin. If you would oblige me by taking them home with you and reading the passages I have marked, they would, methinks, be a mighty help to you in the setting forth of your discourses."

It was impossible for him to take of fense, she was so evidently well-meaning. "And now, Mr. Honeyman," she continued, one request more. Dolly is a most lovable child, but carried away by

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to insure your silence?"

"She gave it to me for the bits of paper; there was naught in the compact touching keeping silence. Nevertheless, if you so desire, you have but to suggest. Whither so fast, Mr. Honeyman? And pray, when you come again, fetch some lemons or other fruit of an agreeable acidity. Pickled walnuts or olives would likewise be ticklish dainties to my presently pampered appetite."

If anything could have deepened the consciousness of meanness in which Mr. Honeyman had grovelled since giving the lectures on St. Paul, it was the complicity in guilt which seemed to be established between himself and Patty.

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