r, and the farm seemed to belong as much to
him as to her. Like most of the people about, he was no Churchman; and
being very ready of speech he was a favourite preacher to the little
congregations meeting in some of the farm-houses scattered about the
mountains.

Every Sunday evening there was a service held in Priscilla's kitchen,
when twenty or thirty of the neighbours would come in to listen to
Nathan's sermons. Of late years a number of young men, some of whom came
long distances, had been in the habit of attending these Sunday evening
meetings.

Old Nathan liked this very much; but Aunt Priscilla's heart was devoured
by anxiety. Some of the new hearers were neighbours' sons, steady, dull
young farmers, too awkward and shame-faced to push themselves forward;
but there were others, bold young sailors, used to voyaging hither and
thither and to making their own way in strange places, who did not
hesitate to put themselves in the very front, close by the settle where
she sat, and to sing bass to Rhoda's treble, and even to find the text
for her in the Bible. One of them, a notorious young scamp, Evan Price,
was Aunt Priscilla's greatest plague and aversion; but she never caught
a single word or glance from Rhoda which could show that the girl
encouraged him, or any one among the others; and as long as that was the
case she was willing enough for them to look at her treasure, or long
for it, but she could not bear the idea of losing it.

To little Joan everything was delightful. There had been the hay
harvest, and the corn harvest, and the cutting of fern on the mountains
for winter fodder, and the threshing of the corn on the barn-floor, and
the piling up of great heaps of straw in the wide bays on each side of
the barn.

And now Christmas was coming. Joan had never kept Christmas, and knew
nothing about it. But at Aunt Priscilla's farm it was a great day, as it
always had been since she could remember. Every relative who could come
to the farm was invited weeks beforehand; and nothing else was talked of
but Christmas Day. The Sunday evening before it came old Nathan's sermon
was all about the shepherds in the field, and how they found the little
babe lying in the manger; and he told the story so well that Joan did
not go to sleep at all, but sat listening to him with her dark eyes wide
open.

"Is it our manger, Rhoda?" she asked, when they went upstairs to their
own little room to bed. "Will the babe be lying i