"Hadn't I better light the fire in the parlor, grandfather? I see the new minister is coming down the hill."

The room which she entered, in accordance with her grandfather's "Certainly-make haste, child!" was simply, even humbly furnished, and yet there had been imparted to it an air of feminine grace and refinement during the last two years, since it had been Elinor's especial charge. Every thing was faultlessly neat. Snowy muslin curtains draped the windows; the armchairs were covered with crimson patch, and two corresponding footstools-Elinor's own workmanshipstood conveniently before them. A few books were strewn upon the table-Parson Blake's gift to Elinor -a Shakspeare, and the works of Pope and Milton, in handsome bindings. Not a speck of dust was visible, and yet Elinor, after lighting the fire, fidgeted nervously with her feather-brush from chair to table, and then, seized with a sudden impulse, sat down and appeared diligently engaged in reading.

That was an afternoon of new and exquisite delight in the girl's quiet life. Walter Fairfield possessed the rare gift of clothing lofty thoughts in simple words, and making himself alike agreeable to old and young. To him also came, that winter day, a new revelation. He recognized in Elinor's musical voice the clear tones. which had strengthened him for his Sabbath dutiesin her young, innocent face the vision he had carried away from church on the Sabbath morning as a new and superior type of loveliness. He had seen beautiful women before, arrayed in the manifold charms of style and fashion, but beside the unconscious grace of Elinor Trumbull they seemed to him like flaunting

peonies contrasted with the fresh rose-bud she wore in her bosom.

There was something dearer in Elinor's beauty than the untroubled azure of her eyes, the golden flow of her hair, the clear tints of her complexion-a soul looking forth from the young wistful face, womanly, pure, strong, and true.

And she, with her imaginative, dreamy nature, her haunting visions of a perfect life, a refined and extended culture shut out from her reach by mountains of circumstances and destiny, listened to the new-comer's voice, making music through all the avenues of her being, and was content.

That night, when the supper was over-the supper prefaced by a blessing, the first one spoken in that house by Walter Fairfield, and whose prophecy to that household of good or ill only the after years could unseal-the simple supper which Elinor had made beautiful by the exquisite neatness and delicacy of her arrangement-when it was over, and the new minister had taken his departure, the elder sat alone in the best room, absorbed in thought; while his wife and her granddaughter were busy in the kitchen, clearing away the fragments and washing up the painted china.

Moses Grant was growing old. His hair was very white; and trouble, more than years, had dug deep furrows in his stern face. The habit was growing on him, as it does on so many old men, of talking to himself. As he sat there, leaning his head back in his chair, and looking thoughtfully into the fire, he murmured,

'Well, after all, the young man does seem full of the Spirit of the Lord. Yes, I really think the Lord

is with him. But he can never be what Parson Blake was to Mary and me. He didn't marry us; he didn't bury our seven children; he didn't know and love Margaret. We are too old now for him to care for us -too old to make new ties-and yet, there's Elinor. The child needs a pastor's care. He will take an interest in her. I believe he does already: she's a good child. Through her, he may get attached to us-who knows? It's a blessed thing when folk can love their minister, and be loved back again, as in Parson Blake's time. And then this young man will be getting married one of these days. He'll be sure to marry a good woman, and she'll be a nice friend for Elinor when Mary and I are laid in the church-yard, with our seven children gone before. Yes, they'll be good friends for the child, and she'll need them then. Elinor!" he called, in a louder tone, and the girl came into the old parlor, and sat down on a stool in the firelight.

"I like this young man, Elinor. He isn't Parson Blake, to be sure; but I think he has the Spirit of God in his heart, and there's no reason why you shouldn't like him as well as another. You have not the memories of so many years to bind you to the dead. He told me this afternoon that he should start a Bible-class, and I want you to join it, and see if you can't keep up your reputation as Parson Blake's best scholar."

Very well, grandpa ;" and then the girl sat there in the silence, while her fancy made glowing pictures in the embers, out of which looked the dark, kindly eyes of the new minister. That she could ever be any thing to him never entered her dreams; she only hoped that, ignorant girl as she was, she might find B

such favor in his eyes that he would impart to her some of his wonderful knowledge; lend her books, perhaps, and now and then condescend to talk to her.

The next Sunday she joined his Bible-class; and that day, and for many quiet Sabbath-days thereafter, the clear tones of her singing renewed his strength, and carried his soul heavenward; and the approving light of her expressive eyes, never by any chance turned away from their steady gaze, filled him with calm, and yet not always calm, delight.

III.

The slow, reluctant feet of the New England spring came over the mountains. Her blue eyes shone over hill and meadow-land through many tears, and in her footprints sprang up crocuses and violets, to live their little day, and die their balmy death. The plowman turned up the rich, loamy soil of the valleys, whistling at his task. The larch hung forth her fragrant blossoms, the laburnum dropped her long sprays of gold. The old lilac-bushes, planted in Moses Grant's front yard when Margaret was a baby, put on once more. their liveries of green, and coquettishly tossed up their purple blossoms, that the winds might rifle their perfume.

Walter Fairfield came very often, in these days, to the elder's house. He had undertaken to teach Elinor botany, and the study involved long, delightful walks over the hills. The old folks were well content that their grandchild should acquire a little of the learning they held in sincere reverence, but which they would

never have sent her out into the world to obtain. She seemed to them so mere a child still, that they never thought of the danger that she might learn another lesson-that while she analyzed the blossoms that skirted hillside and brookside her own heart might be unfolding itself, petal by petal, even to the golden centre, whereon was written "love."

And Elinor was, like them, blissfully unconscious. She had never read a novel in her life. No one had ever talked to her of love or marriage. How should she, at sixteen, be able to translate aright the story which Walter Fairfield delighted to read in her blushes, her downcast eyes, to hear in her tremulous tones which replied to his questionings?

He was an honorable man, and he loved her with an honorable man's deathless love a man's love, full of passion, stronger than life, and yet he shrank from telling her so-from awaking her heart from its maidenly repose-changing sweet hope into certainty -binding her by vows of betrothal.

The time when he could keep silence no longer came to him, as it does to most men, unexpectedly. They had been taking a long walk. The sun had scarcely set, but a young June moon was drifting, like a tiny, glittering cloud, up the blue sky, and they stood watching it together. At last Elinor turned her wet face toward him. He had never seen tears in her eyes before.

"I have been thinking," she said, "how lonely my life used to be before you came. What mysterious fancies, which I had none to explain, haunted me at twilight and moonrise, and how your coming changed all; and you found time to talk with me, and under