Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1881-12-01
AUNT AGAFHA'S CONVERSION.
Concluded.
CHAPTER II.

Aunt Agatha pronounced Mr.. JOrdan's
first sermon very sensible and wonder
ed what such a man could see in that
mincing, affected little bit of goods,
Miss Tipple.'
But as the weeks went by she did not
hear of him quite in the way she liked
in the cottages where she visited, and
she heard of MIN good deal more than
she liked in parson at the parish, at
garden-parties, ,archery-meetings, and So
cial gatherings of various kinds. Not
that he failed to visit among the hum
bier inhabitants of Hild.rstock, but
while she heard of him as smoking his
pipe with them, talking about their gar
dens, or their pigs and their poultry, and
otherwise rendering himself very popu-
lar, he never seemed to speak to them of
religion, or about purely professional
topics.
This was very different from the prac-
tice of the late rector. Jealous evangel-
ical, whose dutiful disciple Aunt Agatha
had been, though in her sturdy indepen-
dence she had sometimes ventured to
express her doubt as to the wisdom of
prolonged exhortations in houses where
the struggle for existence was hard and
exacting, for, as she would say, you
can't make windmill go with pair of
bellows
Something between the prolixity of
bis predecessor and the too purely mum
dane converse of Mr.. Jordan would have
been her idea of the happy mean.
L have just been telling Mrs. Gimp
son. said he one day when he encoun-
tered her at the door of a cottage, that
if she wants her hens to lay she must
vary their food little
Don't you think there are some things
more important than hens eggs you
might speak to Nanny Gimpson about ?
asked my aunt, looking him full in the
face. I'm afraid she's dreadfully igno-
rant, and they say parsons are souls
wagoners.'
DO you know, Miss Gayfer,' he an
swered, 'that when see that cheerful.
active old lady, stricken with pain and
with years, making the thinnest of live
lihoods by unremittiHg care, yet always
contented, feel that it is for me to
learn and be silent; she is the teacher
My aunt was silent for second or
two, and then answered: There is a
great deal in what you say, but it is a
way of looking at things that is new to
me. If it is the right way. l think l
have wasted good deal of time
sAssuredly not said he, you have
carried brightness and order into many
homes. and wherever go l find you
have been an influence for good. Sym
pathy is the true 'open sesame to hu-
man heart. aud in power Of sympathy we
men lag far behind women
From that time gradual change was
observable in Aunt Agatha's dealings
with the poor folk whom she visited. 1t
would have been difficult to say exactly
what it was. A more frequent touch of
tenderness, a greater readiness to make
allowances for the circumstances and
difficulties of each. A greater readiness
to help there could not be, but there was
less readiness to seold.
Sometimes, in the course Of her inde-
fatigabls rounds, she would meet with
and have pleasant converse with the
rector, and would come home quite ra-
diant with pleasure. At other times she
only heard of him as having been the
life and soul of some party, rowing Miss
Tipple and her friends down the river,
organizing picnics and other frivolities
on which Aunt Agatha looked with
scant federation.
THAT man. she remarked one day,
might put new life into whole parish,
and he's becoming mere butterfly. It's
bad enough now; what will it be after
he gets married TO that shallow, worldly
minded woman, heaven only knows
One day in early autumn, as Aunt
Agatha was moving softly among her
asters and chrysanthemums. musing
probably of these matters. harsh
crashing noise and shock as of an