you gave more lessons than were given in school," said Miss
Essie significantly. "What else did you learn of him, Faith?"

Faith gave the lady only a glance of her soft eye, but her face and her
very throat were charged with varying colour. Her attention went from
cresses to cowslips.

"I am saucy!" said the lady.--"Mr. Linden, are you coming back to the
bona fide school here? there'll be a great many glad."

A very involuntary lesson to Miss Essie herself came longingly to Mr.
Linden's lips, but except from the slight play and compression of the
same she had not the benefit of it. He spoke as usual.

"She has never learned the art of self-defence, Miss Essie, therefore I
pray you attack me. No, I am not coming back to the school--and to say
truth, I think there would be some people sorry--as well as glad--if I
did."

"Your bad scholars?"--said the lady, not intent upon her question.

"No--my good friends."

"_I_ should be glad," said Miss Essie. "Who are your friends that would
be sorry? Dr. Harrison, for instance?"

"The friends who like my present work better."

"And you are going to be a clergyman?" said Miss Essie, leaning her
elbow on the table and 'studying' Mr. Linden, perhaps some other things
too, with her eyes. He smiled under the scrutiny, but merely bowed to
her question.

"It's dreadful hard work!--" said Miss Essie.

"Dreadful?--Miss Essie, you have not studied the subject."

"No," said she laughing,--"I said 'dreadful _hard_.' And so it is, I
think."

"'There be some sports are painful, but their labour delight in them
sets off'--is not that equally true of some work?" said Mr. Linden,
making one or two quiet additions to the breakfast on Faith's plate.
Which means of assistance Faith inadvertently disregarded and pushed
her plate away.

"Do you suppose anybody delights in them?" said Miss Essie. "I can't
understand it--but perhaps they do. A minister is very much looked up
to. But one thing is certain--of all things the hardest, it is to be a
minister's wife!"

"Of _all_ things! He must be a poor sort of a minister who lets his
wife have a harder life than his own."

"He can't help it--" said Miss Essie, walking her black eyes about. "Of
course he don't wish it--but women always do have a harder time than
men, and a minister's wife particularly."

"It's a comfort to think he don't wish it," said Mr. Linden with a sort
of resigned gravity.

"Well it would not be much comfort to m