r name,
though; it sounds foreign. Say it again, my dear. I hope she'll know
how to take care of him, English fashion. He is not strong, and if she
does not see that his things are well aired, I should be afraid of the
old cough.'

'He always said he was stronger than he had ever been before, after
that fever.' 'He might think so, but I have my doubts. He was a very
pleasant young man, but he did not stand nursing very well. He got
tired of being coddled, as he called it. J hope they'll soon come back
to England, and then he'll have a chance for his health. I wonder now,
if she speaks English; but, to be sure, he can speak foreign tongues
like anything, as I've heard the minister say.' And so we went on for
some time, till she became drowsy over her knitting, on the sultry
summer afternoon; and I stole away for a walk, for I wanted some
solitude in which to think over things, and, alas! to blame myself with
poignant stabs of remorse.

I lounged lazily as soon as I got to the wood. Here and there the
bubbling, brawling brook circled round a great stone, or a root of an
old tree, and made a pool; otherwise it coursed brightly over the
gravel and stones. I stood by one of these for more than half an hour,
or, indeed, longer, throwing bits of wood or pebbles into the water,
and wondering what I could do to remedy the present state of things. Of
course all my meditation was of no use; and at length the distant sound
of the horn employed to tell the men far afield to leave off work,
warned me that it was six o'clock, and time for me to go home. Then I
caught wafts of the loud-voiced singing of the evening psalm. As I was
crossing the Ashfield, I saw the minister at some distance talking to a
man. I could not hear what they were saying, but I saw an impatient or
dissentient (I could not tell which) gesture on the part of the former,
who walked quickly away, and was apparently absorbed in his thoughts,
for though he passed within twenty yards of me, as both our paths
converged towards home, he took no notice of me. We passed the evening
in a way which was even worse than dinner-time. The minister was
silent, depressed, even irritable. Poor cousin Holman was utterly
perplexed by this unusual frame of mind and temper in her husband; she
was not well herself, and was suffering from the extreme and sultry
heat, which made her less talkative than usual. Phillis, usually so
reverently tender to her parents, so soft, so gentle, seem