rly,
after all, he had loved her in his inmost heart. He grieved to think
that he had not been more indulgent, and that he had often taken her
ailments for pretexts and affectation. Every unkind word he had uttered
stung him to the soul: he would gladly have given his life to recall
it. Such are we. Instead of bearing with and sustaining each other in
life, most men grieve when it is too late, when death has made the
irreparable separation. Why not love while yet we live? Every hour not
spent in kindness is so much robbed from the life of those around us,
which can never be restored.

On Sunday the manor-house farmer no longer went to church in the town,
but to the village church, for his wife lay buried beneath the shadow
of its steeple: he always took the roundabout way of the churchyard.
The weekly visit to his wife's grave seemed like an effort to atone for
his shortcomings toward her in life.

The house was all quiet now. Not a loud word was spoken, and Vefela
ruled there like a spirit of peace. Peace was there, but not joy: some
one seemed to be always missed or anxiously expected. Still, the effect
of Vefela's management on the manor-house farmer was such that he
gradually regained his spirits: he did nothing without consulting "the
child." Indeed, he left almost every thing to her disposal: when any
thing was asked of him, he usually answered, "Ask Vefela."

Thus they lived for years. Vefela was over five-and-twenty. Many
suitors asked for her hand; but she always said that she did not wish
to marry; and her father always assented. "Vefela," he would say, "you
are too refined for a farmer, and when I have gained my lawsuit we will
move into town, and I will give you a peck of dollars for your portion,
and you can choose a gentleman." Vefela would laugh; but secretly she
agreed with her father, at least in so far that she made up her mind
that if she ever did marry it should not be a farmer. She had suffered
so much from the ill-governed passions and implacable hatred of the
peasantry that she had contracted a great hatred against them. She
thought that in town, where people are more refined and have better
manners, they must also be better and truer. She had steeled herself to
bear her troubles only by looking upon the people about her as coarse,
and herself as something higher; and, after pondering on the matter for
so many years, she had come not only to think herself better, but even
to fancy that she occu