s left the room.

'She is my cousin, is she not?' I asked. I knew she was, but somehow I
wanted to talk of her, and did not know how to begin.

'Yes--Phillis Holman. She is our only child--now.'

Either from that 'now', or from a strange momentary wistfulness in her
eyes, I knew that there had been more children, who were now dead.

'How old is cousin Phillis?' said I, scarcely venturing on the new
name, it seemed too prettily familiar for me to call her by it; but
cousin Holman took no notice of it, answering straight to the purpose.

'Seventeen last May-day; but the minister does not like to hear me
calling it May-day,' said she, checking herself with a little awe.
'Phillis was seventeen on the first day of May last,' she repeated in
an emended edition.

'And I am nineteen in another month,' thought I, to myself; I don't
know why. Then Phillis came in, carrying a tray with wine and cake upon
it.

'We keep a house-servant,' said cousin Holman, 'but it is churning day,
and she is busy.' It was meant as a little proud apology for her
daughter's being the handmaiden.

'I like doing it, mother,' said Phillis, in her grave, full voice.

I felt as if I were somebody in the Old Testament--who, I could not
recollect--being served and waited upon by the daughter of the host.
Was I like Abraham's servant, when Rebekah gave him to drink at the
well? I thought Isaac had not gone the pleasantest way to work in
winning him a wife. But Phillis never thought about such things. She
was a stately, gracious young woman, in the dress and with the
simplicity of a child.

As I had been taught, I drank to the health of my newfound cousin and
her husband; and then I ventured to name my cousin Phillis with a
little bow of my head towards her; but I was too awkward to look and
see how she took my compliment. 'I must go now,' said I, rising.

Neither of the women had thought of sharing in the wine; cousin Holman
had broken a bit of cake for form's sake.

'I wish the minister had been within,' said his wife, rising too.
Secretly I was very glad he was not. I did not take kindly to ministers
in those days, and I thought he must be a particular kind of man, by
his objecting to the term May-day. But before I went, cousin Holman
made me promise that I would come back on the Saturday following and
spend Sunday with them; when I should see something of 'the minister'.

'Come on Friday, if you can,' were her last words as she stood at the