420 FORGIVENESS AND FOREBODING. 



for having maimed, perhaps killed, the cricket, and so shared 

 in a measure the discomfiture he had brought upon us all. 

 He gave us no more of his copy-book moralities, and as soon 

 as tea had come to a premature end, he muttered something 

 about something else he had to see to, and left the kitchen. 



After Lucy was in bed, Mrs. Dove redescended to the 

 kitchen, and joined Caleb, to await the return home of the 

 other servants, and the always tardy break-up of my uncle's 

 social sederunt. She, poor soul ! had lost her appetite, but she 

 laid on supper for the old man, and even took down his pipe 

 and placed it by his side. Softened, perhaps, for once, by these 

 unmerited attentions, the offending butler, now that we were 

 no longer present to witness his humiliation, actually made up 

 his mind to express something like contrition for the deed he 

 had committed. After sundry uneasy contortions of limb and 

 feature, the hard lines of his face assumed something of a de- 

 precating turn. He drew his chair towards that of his vis-a- 

 vis, and then, in a voice not unlike the scraze of its legs upon 

 the brick floor, gave utterance, as if with infinite effort, to the 

 undeniable assertion that " Forgiveness is gracious." 



Dolly, with a sorrowful but most forgiving smile, shook her 

 head; " Ah, Caleb!" said she, "you were in a pet, and I 

 suppose couldn't help it ; but sure as we are sitting here, some- 

 thing amiss will come over this old house before another Christ- 

 mas. Well, you may look as if you didn't believe it ; but we 

 shall see." 



At the parsonage we were all in our different ways addicted 

 to entomology ; following therein the example of its master. 

 My uncle possessed a cabinet of entomological specimens, with 

 a case full of entomological books, finely illustrated also, in 

 the season, an insect menagerie, of which the collection and the 

 feeding were chiefly mine. The care of the cabinet and the 

 books, as coming within the province of librarian, fell to the 

 share of Caleb, who having, in their camphoring and dusting, 

 made himself acquainted, by halves, with a few scientific names 



