some love was like a spring a-wellin' hair will curl and I abhor linen col

lars. The minister business I have to learn from a to z. Really those fine thoughts that proved angel wings to you, were none of them mine. They were stolen from Mr. Norris' sermons. And I have it all to confess to him before I sleep tonight."

up. That 'minded me of Prissy's love bubblin' and sparklin' like the spring down by the big ledge, where we used to make our play-house when the bluets were in blossom. Then when you told about a deep well with a star shinin' in it, I thought of sister Liddy's love. Only I had never called it love before; just called it 'doin' things,' such as I expected. But I see now, doin' is the deepist kind of lovin.' But the best was, when you said that some folkses love might be deep and honist but mistaken; and they'd likely act ha'sh and cruel, thinkin' all the time it was for your good. Then maybe you would git all r'iled up and forgit the years. of lovin' that has gone before and git to hatin' and perhaps dyin' afore you know it. That made me think of-ofsomeone else. But I can see now, it was her way of lovin'. I sha'n't hate her no more, never. I am so glad."

"They was all true thoughts," asserted Ploomy, the inner light deepening in her eyes, "and seein' you stole our Elder's heart, he shouldn't be put out if you steal more that's good and true, of his'n."

"I will remember that, Little Girl, when I make my confession," said Sally, laughing again merrily, then,— "But how your 'Elder' loves these mountains, his work, and his people; the brawny-armed, sooty-faced miners and all! A few may be slow of speech, and like their valleys, narrow and confined in their ideas, but they are honest thinkers and their valleys are on a high level. These last words are his, Deary. I repeat them whenever I need bracing. But between you and me. Ploomy, I don't like these mountains. They have sulked behind a dismal haze ever since I came, which is a very impolite way to treat a bride, to say the least. Your people are, no doubt, excellent, so are butternuts, and I've only my two small fists to smite with. Charley has the advantage, for he can lay them on the anvil Sundays and make sparks fly. O Sally Norris, what an unguarded speech!"

While she had been talking, Sally had slipped from her uncomfortable, straight backed chair, to the velvety "drawn in" rug, flaunting its gay medley of bright colors in front of Ploomy's rocking-chair. While reclining there, and tracing with her dainty finger around the intricate scrolls and amazing roses, she was chatting idly and busily on, but keeping an ear alert, to catch the first blast of the long delayed dinner-horn.

After another short pause, Ploomy added, "O, Mis' Norris, your words are wonderful to me; like after a long spell, everything dryin' up, you lay in the hot night pantin' for your breath, and all at once, feel a cool wind liftin' the heavy hair off'n your for'ed, like your mother's hand use to, and you go to sleep, listenin' to the rain."

The eyes of the young wife brimmed with sudden tears. Ploomy, drawing the sweet face nearer to her own, caressed with shy fingers the sunny curls on Sally's forehead. “I have never seen a minister's wife like you before," she said, with the dearest smile. "Why, you are just like other girls, only nicer of course. I must have thought you was all born with hair smooth and shiny, and linin collars on." The girl ended with a genuine giggle and was rewarded by an approving pat and a ripple of laughter.

"Now you see, Mis' Ploomy," still laughed the little woman, "I am not a regular born, parson's wife. My

"Now you see," she exclaimed, while lifting her bonny face, and

shaking that dainty finger to Ploomy. "You see, Ploomy, Mr. Norris, even for me, would not leave his work here and his people, as he loves to call them; yet he did ask me to leave the dearest, sunniest home and come to him."

"What made you listen to him? What made you come?" Ploomy questioned with eager interest.

“Oh, perhaps I admired him the more, for not betraying his manhood; for not letting anything beguile him from his chosen work. He would not make an idol of me, so I am proud to be his wife. Proud," Proud," with a brave tilt of the curly head, "to find that I have it within me, to endure things, (even desperate homesickness, just now,) for one whom I love. Can you understand that, Girlie?"

"Yis, oh yis, Mis' Norris; the more my Alic had to bear, the more I wanted to stand by him. But Mother said I couldn't never be his wife; she'd see me laid in the grave-yard first, 'side of Prissy." Ploomy's reply had been hurried, and shrill with emotion. After an abrupt pause, she resumed in an even and decided tone, "But, Mis' Norris, as I said to you, I won't never hold it no more against my mother, for you've made me see so plain, it's her way of lovin' me, and a sufferin' way too; like a wild anamile when somethin's threatenin' its young-ones."

"But, who is Alic?" asked Mrs. Norris, a new note of sympathetic interest in her voice.

past. When Alic spoke about it to
Father, he was glad, and said Alic
was like his own boy. With Mother
'twas dif'runt. She liked Alic, she
said; but, she said, she 'couldn't stum-
mick them Stinsons.' They was
good, respectable folks, Father kept
tellin' her. Though they did have a
big fam'ly, always comin', and piles
of docter's bills. Mother tried to be
happy, because I was, and we had got
my chist most full, when something
happened among his family; somethin
he couldn't be blamed for, more'n the
angels in heaven. Then mother up
and talked to Alic and me. But I
won't think of them cruel words no
more.

"The next mornin' Father found a writin' left on Alic's chist when he'd gone and went off in the night. I can say it by heart. It reads like this, 'Dear Uncle Siah, I thank you for bein' a father to me, and for the prayers I have heard you putting up for me in the old barn chamber, many a time, when you didn't know I was nigh. I shall never forget Red Barn Farm. I would like to say more, but I am forbid, and I have promised. Give my three hundred dollars to Father, to help on the mortgage. Good bye. Alic.'

"Was that all?" asked Mrs. Norris, very softly. "Have you never heard from him since?"

"Nobuddy has," sighed Ploomy, "But I could have stood it all, and not give up and die, like I am doin'" she still continued, "for Alic wouldn't never forgit me, and I could be waitin'; and I dreamed such a comfortin' dream about Prissy. I saw her standin' by the old spring, her white feet shinin' among the bluets, and she was laughin' and holdin' up a drippin' cup of water to me, when white veil, like a thin mountain shower, only brighter, come sweepin' between us. I know now she is some

a

waters.
dif'runt.

"He was Father's bound boy, took when he was ten year old, to work for his keep an' schoolin' and threehundred dollars when he got to be one-an'-twenty." Plomy's voice was trailing off again, and Sally deplored asking that last, unfortunate question.

"I was eight year old," Ploomy rallying, continued, "when Alic first come. We all growed up together where among flowers and sparklin' like one fam❜ly, and did'nt see no But with mother it was dif'runce; I didn't till he was twenty, There I have ben all the

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