little lass."

"She ain't no little lass now, Mr. Bateson," argued Mrs. Hankey; "Lucy
Ellen must be forty, if she's a day."

"So she be, Mrs. Hankey--so she be; but she is my little lass to me, all
the same, and always will be. The children never grow up to them as
loves 'em. They are always our children, just as we are always the
Lord's children; and we never leave off a-screening and a-sheltering o'
them, any more than He ever leaves off a-screening and a-sheltering of
us."

"I'm glad to hear as Lucy Ellen has married into a good circuit. Unless
the Lord build the house we know how they labour in vain that build it;
and the Lord can't do much unless He has a good minister to help Him. I
don't deny as He _may_ work through local preachers; but I like a
regular superintendent myself, with one or more ministers under him."

"Oh! Lucy Ellen lives in one of the best circuits in the Connexion,"
said Mrs. Bateson proudly; "they have an ex-president as superintendent,
and three ministers under him, and a supernumerary as well. They never
hear the same preached more than once a month; it's something grand!"

"Eh! it's a fine place is Craychester," added Caleb; "they held
Conference there two years ago."

"It must be a grand thing to live in a place where they hold
Conference," remarked Mrs. Hankey.

"It is indeed," agreed Mrs. Bateson; "Lucy Ellen said it seemed for all
the world like heaven, to see so many ministers about, all in their
black coats and white neckcloths. And then such preaching as they heard!
It isn't often young folks enjoy such privileges, and so I told her."

"When all's said and done, there's nothing like a good sermon for giving
folks real pleasure. Nothing in this world comes up to it, and I doubt
if there'll be anything much better in the next," said Caleb; "I don't
see as how there can be."

His friends all agreed with him, and continued, for the rest of the
drive, to discuss the respective merits of various discourses they had
been privileged to hear.

It was a glorious day. The sky was blue, with just enough white clouds
flitting about to show how blue the blue part really was; and the
varying shadows kept passing, like the caress of some unseen yet
ever-protecting Hand, over the green nearnesses and the violet distances
of a country whose foundations seemed to be of emerald and amethyst, and
its walls and gateways of pearl. The large company from the Osierfield
drove across the breezy com