er sweet lips.

"I can't help it indeed, Frank," she said. "I am so sorry for the
poor children, bereft of both parents. Their mother was a refined,
gentle creature, too, I have been told; of a different mould from
Miss Hepsy. The calmness, though, to ask you to do all this simply
because Joshua is too hard to spare a day's labour! Are you doing
altogether right, Frank, I wonder, in taking it off his hands?"

"I could not refuse it, Carrie," returned the minister. "Like you, I
am sorry for the poor little orphans. Their life will not be all
sunshine, I fear, at Thankful Rest."

Miss Goldthwaite sighed, and from the open window watched in silence
Miss Hepsy's brilliant figure crossing the river by the bridge a
hundred yards beyond the parsonage gate.

"I think, Frank, that among all your parishioners there is not a more
unhappy pair than Joshua Strong and his sister. I wish they could be
made to see how differently God meant them to spend their lives. It
saddens me to see their hardness and sourness."

"Perhaps these little children may do them good, dear," returned the
minister gravely. "It would not be the first time God has used the
influence of little children to do what no other power on earth
could. We will pray it may be so."

"Yes," returned Carrie Goldthwaite; and the shade deepened on her
sweet face as she added again, "Poor little things! it will be a sore
change from the tender care of a mother. We must do what we can,
Frank, to make their home at Thankful Rest as happy as possible. We
had such a happy one ourselves, I feel an intense pity for those who
have not. There is Judge Keane on horseback at the gate. He wants
either you or me to go out and speak with him."

The minister rose, and both stepped out to the veranda, and down the
steps to the garden. The judge had alighted, and fastening his bridle
to the gate-post, came up the path to meet them. He was an old man,
with white hair and beard; but his fine figure was as erect and
stately as it had been a quarter of a century before. He shook hands
cordially with the minister, touched Carrie Goldthwaite's brow with
his lips, and then said, in a brisk, cheerful voice,--

"My wife heard you were going to Newhaven for a couple of days, and
sent me down to say she would expect you, miss," (he nodded to
Carrie,) "at the Red House to-morrow, to stay till he comes back. I
may say yes, I suppose?"

"Yes, and thank you, Judge Keane," said Miss Goldthwaite