e stone under his
plank-soled foot remained unbroken. He was at a loss to think what
could have happened at the parsonage, and would rather have gone there
at once.

Mike received the same invitation as he was "greasing his old nag's
Sunday boots,"--as he termed getting up his hoof's for market. He
whistled a naughty tune, but stopped in the middle of it, for he well
knew what was coming. He was glad of the chance to prepare himself for
a good counter-sermon, a few sentences of which he already mumbled
between his teeth.

On Sunday morning the parson took for his text, "Behold, how good and
how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!" (Psalm
cxxxii. 1.) He showed that all the happiness and joy of earth is void
and vapid if not shared between those who have slept in the same
mother's womb; he said that parents can neither be happy here nor at
peace hereafter if their children are sundered by hatred, envy, or
malice; he referred to Cain and Abel, and spoke of fratricide as the
first venomous fruit of the fall. All this was uttered in a full,
resounding voice, of which the farmers said, "It pries the walls
apart." Alas! it is often almost easier to move stone walls than to
soften the hard heart of man. Barbara wept bitter tears over the evil
ways of her brothers; and, although the parson declared again and again
that he did not allude to any one in particular, but desired one and
all to lay their hands on their hearts and ask themselves whether the
true love for their kindred was in them, yet every one was content to
think, "That's for Mike and Conrad: the shoe fits them exactly."

The two latter stood near each other, Mike chewing his cap, which he
held between his teeth, and Conrad listening with open mouth. Once
their eyes met, and then Mike dropped his cap and stooped down quickly
to pick it up.

The hymn at the close had a calm, pacifying influence; but, before the
last sounds had died away, Mike was out of the church, and knocked at
the door of the parsonage. Finding it locked, he went into the garden.
He stood before the beehives, and watched their restless labor.

"They never know when Sunday comes."

And he thought, "I have no Sunday either, with my traffic; but then I
have no real working-day." Again he thought how many hundred brothers
lived together in a beehive, all working like the old folks. He did not
dwell upon such reflections, however. He made up his mind that the