d Chester. "Come, Phronie. Now you will see, and judge for yourself,
the glorious old man you have heard me tell so much about."

Hepsy was not the last to start. But she stopped to take Jenny with her.

"Come, dear," said she, "you must have your face washed now. What are
you doing?"

The child, seated upon the turf, was absorbed in the anatomy of a
grasshopper. It was one of the oldest of its race,--a large,
respectable fellow, over an inch long. In pursuing her investigations,
however, Jenny had taken its head off; and it had thus fallen a victim
to infant science.

"Why, Jenny!" exclaimed Hepsy, "you have killed the poor thing!"

"Are you sorry?" lisped the little girl, with beautiful simplicity. "You
needn't be," she added, cheerily. "There's enough more of 'em."

It took Hepsy a good while to explain exactly why children should not
indulge a passion for decapitating insects; and Jenny was sadly troubled
when allusion was made to the gentle removal of her own fair head from
her shoulders, in order that she might judge how grasshoppers felt under
the circumstances.

XXXIII.

CONCLUSION.

It was a joyful meeting, and that day was one of the happiest in the old
clergyman's life. He took the children to his bosom with all the warm
affection of his sunny nature, with tears of thankfulness in his eyes.

He had lasted wonderfully. You could hardly discover that he had grown
old at all. There was the same serene face,--aged, indeed, but with a
spirit eternally young forever shining through.

He had come to pass only a few days with his friends. And those
days--would we had space to describe them!--flew swiftly by. Once more
the time came for his departure.

But he remained long enough to remark, and to rejoice over, the change
in Mrs. Royden's household since the day when he first came there to
spend his brief vacation. There was sunshine beneath the roof. There was
music in the air of the house. There was beauty all around.

"We owe it all to your teaching and example," said Mr. Royden, one
afternoon, speaking gratefully of the change. "Before you came, we never
really knew what religion was. It seemed something separate from the
business and everyday affairs of life, and we thought we could not well
afford to try its utility. We learned from you that it was the sweetener
of every thought and every act of the day. Wife and I have been
practising it as well as we could, and we find that it pours the