and he'll come."

"That's a capital plan, Aunt Faith!" said her nephew, with a tone of
pleased animation. "Cross Corners will be under obligation to you. Mr.
Armstrong is a man whom I greatly respect and admire."

"So do I," said Miss Henderson. "And if I didn't, when a man is beset
with thieves all the way from Jerusalem to Jericho, it's time for some
kind of a Samaritan to come along."

Next day, Mis' Battis heard the news, and had her word of comment to
offer.

"She's got room enough for him, if that's all; but I wouldn't a believed
she'd have let herself be put about and upset so, if it was for John the
Baptist! I always thought she was setter'n an old hen! But then, she's
gittin' into years, and it's kinder handy, I s'pose, havin' a minister
round the house, sayin' she should be took anyways sudden!"

Village comments it would be needless to attempt to chronicle.

April days began to wear their tearful beauty, and the southwest room at
the old house was given up to Mr. Armstrong.

CHAPTER XX.

PAUL.

"Standing, with reluctant feet,
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet!"
LONGFELLOW.

Glory had not been content with the utmost she could find to do in
making the southwest room as clean, and bright, and fresh, and perfect
in its appointments as her zealous labor and Miss Henderson's nice,
old-fashioned methods and materials afforded possibility for. Twenty
times a day, during the few that intervened between its fitting up and
Mr. Armstrong's occupation of it, she darted in, to settle a festoon of
fringe, or to pick a speck from the carpet, or to move a chair a
hair's-breadth this way or that, or to smooth an invisible crease in the
counterpane, or, above all, to take a pleased survey of everything once
more, and to wonder how the minister would like it.

So well, indeed, he liked it, when he had taken full possession, that he
seemed to divine the favorite room must have been relinquished to him,
and to scruple at keeping it quite solely to himself.

In the pleasant afternoons, when the spring sun got round to his
westerly windows, and away from the southeast apartment, whither Miss
Henderson had betaken herself, her knitting work, and her Bible, and
where now the meals were always spread, he would open his door, and let
the pleasantness stray out across the passage, and into the keeping
room, and would often take a book, and come in, himself, also