over forty years. During that period their house--as may be inferred from
preceding pages--was the ever welcome home for the itinerant preacher.
The presiding elder and the preacher in charge often met there to counsel
together. The junior preacher, who was usually a single man, made it one
of his homes, where he came to rest and study. The "best room," with its
fireplace, bed, table, etc., was occupied more by the preachers than by
all other company, and was known as "the preachers' room." Both circuit
preachers frequently passed a night there together in their rounds; but the
senior, having a home somewhere, would speak of this as the junior's
home, and of himself as "his guest," as well as the guest of the family.
Sometimes all three of the itinerants would meet there for days at a time.
Such were seasons of great joy all around, and of some little pleasantry,
although cautiously indulged in in those days.

On one such occasion, as the three preachers and the family were sitting
around the large fireplace on a winter evening, and conversation had
about quieted to a lull, one of the elders hunched the junior, and with a
significant wink suggested to him to ask counsel of Sister Arnold, who was
busy sewing by the candle-stand. Now the said junior was a very promising
boy of nineteen, but, withal, a little too boyish to quite suit the ideal
of this grave woman. So while he stated the question she listened with her
attention mostly upon her work. "Mother Arnold, I have, as our Discipline
requires, counseled with these my seniors upon a very important question."
She glances at him very slightly. "It is the question of marriage." Another
glance, which is enough to wilt a boy of ordinary courage, and instantly
her eye is on her work again. He rallies, however, and begins again: "I am
advised by several to marry, and am thinking seriously of doing so. I now
desire your advice." Slowly her spectacles mount to her forehead, her keen
black eye seems to look right through him, and she slowly and gravely
replies, "Well, my advice is, that you wait until you get to be a man." The