able to rely upon the party sympathies of any one of them. The mob
hated him with the blind sentiment that makes one surly cur hostile to
another surly cur. He was the most isolated individual to be found
anywhere; and, being so unsupported, everybody was his enemy.

The town, as it happened, had been pleased to interest itself much in
this matter of Doctor Grim and the two children, insomuch as he never
sent them to school, nor came with them to meeting of any kind, but was
bringing them up ignorant heathen to all appearances, and, as many
believed, was devoting them in some way to the great spider, to which
he had bartered his own soul. It had been mooted among the selectmen,
the fathers of the town, whether their duty did not require them to put
the children under more suitable guardianship; a measure which, it may
be, was chiefly hindered by the consideration that, in that case, the
cost of supporting them would probably be transferred from the grim
Doctor's shoulders to those of the community. Nevertheless, they did
what they could. Maidenly ladies, prim and starched, in one or two
instances called upon the Doctor--the two children meanwhile being in
the graveyard at play--to give him Christian advice as to the
management of his charge. But, to confess the truth, the Doctor's
reception of these fair missionaries was not extremely courteous. They
were, perhaps, partly instigated by a natural feminine desire to see
the interior of a place about which they had heard much, with its
spiders' webs, its strange machines and confusing tools; so, much
contrary to crusty Hannah's advice, they persisted in entering. Crusty
Hannah listened at the door; and it was curious to see the delighted
smile which came over her dry old visage as the Doctor's growling,
rough voice, after an abrupt question or two, and a reply in a thin
voice on the part of the maiden ladies, grew louder and louder, till
the door opened, and forth came the benevolent pair in great