e sometimes; so that he has her
choice (to divide the pronouns impartially) of various hypotheses to
account for the new glory of happiness which seemed to have irradiated
our poor Helen's features, as if her dreary life were awakening in the
dawn of a blessed future.

With all the alleviations which have been hinted at, Mr. Dudley Venner
thought that the days and the weeks had never moved so slowly as through
the last period of the autumn that was passing. Elsie had been a
perpetual source of anxiety to him, but still she had been a companion.
He could not mourn for her; for he felt that she was safer with her
mother, in that world where there are no more sorrows and dangers, than
she could have been with him. But as he sat at his window and looked at
the three mounds, the loneliness of the great house made it seem more
like the sepulchre than these narrow dwellings where his beloved and her
daughter lay close to each other, side by side,--Catalina, the bride of
his youth, and Elsie, the child whom he had nurtured, with poor Old
Sophy, who had followed them like a black shadow, at their feet, under
the same soft turf, sprinkled with the brown autumnal leaves. It was not
good for him to be thus alone. How should he ever live through the long
months of November and December?

The months of November and December did, in some way or other, get rid of
themselves at last, bringing with them the usual events of village-life
and a few unusual ones. Some of the geologists had been up to look at
the great slide, of which they gave those prolix accounts which everybody
remembers who read the scientific journals of the time. The engineers
reported that there was little probability of any further convulsion
along the line of rocks which overhung the more thickly settled part of
the town. The naturalists drew up a paper on the "Probable Extinction
of the Crotalus Durissus in the Township of Rockland." The engagement
of the Widow Rowens to a Little Millionville merchant was
announced,--"Sudding 'n' onexpected," Widow Leech said,--"waalthy, or she
wouldn't ha' looked at him,--fifty year old, if he is a day, 'n' hu'n't
got a white hair in his head." The Reverend Chauncy Fairweather had
publicly announced that he was going to join the Roman Catholic
communion,--not so much to the surprise or consternation of the
religious world as he had supposed. Several old ladies forthwith
proclaimed their intention of following him; but,