be the heart that hath conceived this thing, and the hand
that hath done it," said he. "My poor room, it is a bower of roses, all
beauty and fragrance."

And he sat down, inhaling them and looking at them; and a dreamy, tender
complacency crept over his heart, and softened his noble features
exquisitely.

Widow Gough, red with gratified pride, stood watching him, and admiring
him; but, indeed, she often admired him, though she had got into a way
of decrying him.

But at last she lost patience at his want of curiosity; that being a
defect she was free from herself.

"Ye don't ask me who sent them," said she, reproachfully.

"Nay, nay," said he; "prithee do not tell me: let me divine."

"Divine, then," said Betty, roughly. "Which I suppose you means
'guess.'"

"Nay, but let me be quiet awhile," said he, imploringly; "let me sit
down and fancy that I am a holy man, and some angel hath turned my cave
into a Paradise."

"No more an angel than I am," said the practical widow. "But, now I
think on 't, y' are not to know who 't was. Them as sent them they bade
me hold my tongue."

This was not true; but Betty, being herself given to unwise revelations
and superfluous secrecy, chose suddenly to assume that this business was
to be clandestine.

The priest turned his eye inwards and meditated.

"I see who it is," said he, with an air of absolute conviction. "It must
be the lady who comes always when I preach, and her face like none
other; it beams with divine intelligence. I will make her all the return
we poor priests can make to our benefactors. I will pray for her soul
here among the flowers God has made, and she has given his servant to
glorify his dwelling. My daughter, you may retire."

This last with surprising, gentle dignity; so Betty went off rather
abashed, and avenged herself by adulterating the holy man's innutritious
food with Mrs. Gaunt's good gravy; while he prayed fervently for her
eternal weal among the flowers she had given him.

Now Mrs. Gaunt, after eight years of married life, was too sensible and
dignified a woman to make a romantic mystery out of nothing. She
concealed the gravy, because there secrecy was necessary; but she never
dreamed of hiding that she had sent her spiritual adviser a load of
flowers. She did not tell her neighbors, for she was not ostentatious;
but she told her husband, who grunted, but did not object.

But Betty's nonsense lent an air of romance and mystery that was