serves rather as a distinction than otherwise. Squire Edwards is
moreover chairman of the selectmen, and furthermore most of the
farmers are in his debt for supplies, while to these varied elements
of influence, his theological ancestry adds a certain odor of
sanctity. It is true that Squire Jahleel Woodbridge is even more
brilliantly descended, counting two colonial governors and numerous
divines among his ancestry, not to speak of a rumored kinship with the
English noble family of Northumberland. But instead of tending to a
profitless rivalry the respective claims of the Edwardses and the
Woodbridges to distinction have happily been merged by the marriage of
Jahleel Woodbridge and Lucy Edwards, the sister of Squire Timothy, so
that in all social and political matters, the two families are closely
allied.

The back room of the store is, in a sense, the Council-chamber, where
the affairs of the village are debated and settled by these magnates,
whose decisions the common people never dream of anticipating or
questioning. It is also a convivial center, a sort of clubroom. There,
of an afternoon, may generally be seen Squires Woodbridge, Williams,
Elisha Brown, Deacon Nash, Squire Edwards, and perhaps a few others,
relaxing their gravity over generous bumpers of some choice old
Jamaica, which Edwards had luckily laid in, just before the war
stopped all imports.

In the west half of the store building, Squire Edwards lives with his
family, including, besides his wife and children, the remnants of his
father's family and that of his sister, the widowed Mrs. President
Burr. Young Aaron Burr was there, for a while after his graduation at
Princeton, and during the intervals of his arduous theological studies
with Dr. Bellamy at Bethlehem. Perchance there are heart-sore maidens