most admirably adapted. Under his changed view of
life, it appeared to Reuben that every unnecessary indulgence, whether
of dress or food, was a sin. With the glowing enthusiasm of youth, he
put such beautiful construction upon the rules of Christian faith as
would hardly survive the rough every-day wear of the world. Even the
stiff dignity of Dr. Mowry he was inclined to count only an accidental
incrustation of manner, beneath which the heart of the parson was all
aglow with the tenderest benevolence. We hope he may have been right in
this; it is certain, that, if he could carry forward the same loving
charity to the end of his days, he would have won the best third of the
elements of a Christian career, without respect to dogmas.

So Reuben goes back to Ashfield with a very modest and quiet bearing. He
is to look with other eyes now upon the life there, and to judge how far
it will sustain his new-found religious sympathies. All meet him kindly.
Old Squire Elderkin, who chances to be the first to greet him as he
alights from the coach, shakes him warmly by the hand, and taps him
patronizingly upon the shoulder.

"Welcome home again, Reuben! Well, well, they thought you were given
over to bad courses; but it's all right now, I hear; quite upon the
other tack, eh, Reuben? That's well, my good fellow, that's well."

And Reuben thanked him, thinking perhaps how odd it was that this
worldly old gentleman, of whom he had thought, since his late revulsion
of feeling, with a good deal of quiet pity, should commend what was so
foreign to his own habit. There were, then, some streaks of good-natured
worldliness which tallied with Christian duty. The serene, kindly look
of Mrs. Elderkin was in itself the tenderest welcome; and it was an
ennobling thought to Reuben, that he had at last placed himself (or
fancied he had) upon the same moral plane with that good woman. As for
Rose, the joyous, frolicsome, charming Rose, whom he had thought at one
time to electrify by his elegant city accomplishments,--was not even the
graceful Rose a veteran in the Christian army in which he had but now
enlisted? Why, then, should she show timidity and shyness at this
meeting with him? Yet her little fingers had a quick tremor in them as
she took his hand, and a swift change of color (he knew it of old) ran
over her face like a rosy cloud.

"It is delightful to think that Reuben is safe at last," said Mrs.
Elderkin, after he had gone.

"Yes, m