find `The Puritan' for Mr Maxwell, and he can take a look at that in
the meantime."

Elizabeth did as she was bidden, and managed to make the minister
understand, without saying so, that she would like him not to go away.
So he sat down to the doubtful enjoyment of the paper while Elizabeth
followed her father from the room.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

TAKING COUNSEL.

It was one of those soft, bright days of early March that might beguile
a new-comer to the country into a temporary belief that spring had come
at last, and Elizabeth, tying her "cloud" over her head, followed her
father out into the yard. To take a walk just for the sake of the walk
was not likely to suit old Mr Holt, or to do him much good. But he and
Elizabeth went about here and there, in the yard and up and down the
well-swept walk from the gate to the door, where the snow lay still on
either side as high as the squire's shoulder, and Elizabeth talked to
him about the great wood-pile, and praised the industry and energy of
Nathan Pell, the hired man, and of his team, Dick and Doll, that were
making it longer every day. She spoke of the great drifts that must be
cleared away before the thaw came, of the bough which last night's wind
had brought down from the elm in the corner, of the broken bit of fence
beyond the gate, of anything to lead his thoughts away from the theme
which for the last hour had occupied and excited him.

She succeeded so well, that he went away by himself, to get a hammer and
nails to mend the broken paling, and Elizabeth, leaning over the little
white gate while she waited for him to return, had an unexpected
pleasure--a little chat with Mrs Jacob. It was not the chat which gave
her the pleasure, it was her own thought that amused her, and the
knowledge of her sister-in-law's thoughts as well.

She knew that though Mrs Jacob declined to come in now at her
invitation, she had come up the street with the full design of doing so,
and she knew that she was saying to herself that Mr Maxwell could not
be in the house, though Jacob had seen him going that way, or Lizzie
would never be standing so long at the gate, looking down the street.

"I am waiting for father," said Elizabeth; "he has gone in for the
hammer to drive some nails in the fence. I suppose Nathan must have
driven against it last night in the dark." She was hoping that Mr
Maxwell was enjoying "The Puritan" so well that he would not be tempted
to look out of the w