Page:Sylvester Sound the Somnambulist (1844).djvu/31

 "He's off!" cried the pastor. "Follow him, Jones! but don't say a word: he is clearly respectable. See where he goes, Jones, and then let me know."

Jones rushed to the gate and followed Sylvester's footsteps; and when he saw him actually enter the cottage, he returned to the pastor and made the fact known.

But then—what was to be done? Aunt Eleanor was a lady for whom the reverend gentleman entertained the highest respect! The question with him therefore was, whether he ought to wound her feelings by complaining of that which had occurred, or to take no farther notice of the matter. He was soon, however, prompted to answer this question by the thought of his peaches. He could not in silence endure the loss of them. They were the finest in the county!—nay, in his judgment, Europe could not produce peaches at all comparable with them. He therefore resolved to proceed to the cottage, and to the cottage he did proceed, followed by the gentle Jones, who absolutely swelled with indignation,

As they passed through the gate, Aunt Eleanor, who saw them, and who held the reverend gentleman in very high esteem, rang the bell for the servant to open the door, and then received him with all her characteristic cordiality and grace, while the highly indignant Jones remained swelling at the door.

"My dear madam," said the pastor, as soon as he had recovered the power to speak, for the occurrence had induced a dreadful state of excitement, which his sharp walk to the cottage had by no means subdued, "My dear madam, I regret—I exceedingly regret—that I should have to call on business of a nature so unpleasant; but you have, I believe, a young gentleman here?"

"My nephew!" replied Aunt Eleanor. "I brought him with me this morning, and a sweet little fellow he is!"

"T am sorry," returned the reverend gentleman, "I am indeed very sorry to be compelled to say that he is unhappily addicted to practices which I will not exactly designate audacious—"

"Sir!"

"But which are, in my judgment, highly improper."

"You amaze me!" exclaimed Aunt Eleanor; and really the amazement she expressed was very striking. "My nephew addicted to practices which you deem highly improper! Why, he is one of the mildest and most inoffensive little fellows that ever breathed! He would not hurt a worm!"

"It may be true that he would not hurt a worm; but I know him to be very fond of peaches."

"That is very possible! and I submit very natural. But may I be permitted to know what you mean?"

"Why it is, my dear madam, with the greatest reluctance that I make a complaint of this nature to you; but I think that it may, be highly beneficial to him, for we know that if our vices in youth be unchecked they grow with our growth and strengthen with our strength."

"Dear me!" cried Aunt Eleanor, "why—what on earth can have occured?"