Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/169

Rh I reckon it would be jest what Mis' Allen would like. She 's dreadful fond o' children. She an' the parson hain't never had any o' their own."

Jim glanced at me triumphantly.

"Yes," the good soul went on; "I do reely think there 's a kind o Providence in the hull thing from fust to last. I 've often heerd Mis Allen say that she an' the Parson hed thought of adoptin' a little gal, but they never quite see their way to do it. You see, his salary 's dreadful small. Tain't much we kin raise in money down here, and there 's a sight o' men folks moved out o' town 'n the last few years. So I reckon Mis Allen 's given up all idea on't long ago. Did ye ever see her? She 's jest the handsomest old lady ye ever sot eyes on. There ain't a gal in the meetin'us, not one, that 's got such cheeks as Mis' Allen, an' she 's goin on sixty. She 's a Quaker, for all she 's married the parson, an they do say there 's somethin' in the Quaker religion that 's wonderful purifyin' to the complexion. I don'no how 't is. But there ain't no such cheeks as Mis' Allen's in our meetin'us, old or young; I 'll say that much, whether it 's the religion makes 'em, or not."

Fairly launched on the subject of Mrs. Allen, good Mrs. Bunker would have talked until noon, apparently, if Jim had not interrupted her to say that we must go at once to report our arrival to Parson Allen, and to see what arrangements we could make for Alice there.