difference, has been
straying off with Phil Elderkin, although he has caught a glimpse of the
carriage at the door. Later he makes his way into the study, where the
Doctor, after giving him kindly reproof for not being at home to welcome
them, urges upon him the duty of kindness to the young stranger who has
come to make her home with them, and trusts that Providence may overrule
her presence there to the improvement and blessing of both. It is, in
fact, a little lecture which the good, but prosy Doctor pronounces to
the boy; from which he slipping away, so soon as a good gap occurs in
the discourse, strolls with a jaunty affectation of carelessness into
the parlor. His Aunt Eliza is there now seated at the table, and Adele
standing by the hearth, on which a little fire has just been kindled.
She gives a quick, eager look at him, under which his assumed
carelessness vanishes in an instant.

"This is Adele, our little French guest, Reuben."

The lad throws a quick, searching glance upon her, but is abashed by the
look of half-confidence and half-merriment that he sees twinkling in her
eye. The boy's awkwardness seems to infect her, too, for a moment.

"I should think, Reuben, you would welcome Adele to the parsonage," said
the spinster.

And Reuben, glancing again from under his brow, sidles along the table,
with far less of ease than he had worn when he came whistling through
the hall,--sidles nearer and nearer, till she, with a coy approach that
seems to be full of doubt, meets him with a little furtive hand-shake.
Then he, retiring a step, leans with one elbow on the friendly table,
eying her curiously, and more boldly when he discovers that her look is
downcast, and that she seems to be warming her feet at the blaze.

Miss Johns has watched narrowly this approach of her two _proteges_,
with an interest quite uncommon to her; and now, with a policy that
would have honored a more adroit tactician, she slips quietly from the
room.

Reuben feels freer at this, knowing that the gray eye is not upon the
watch; Adele too, perhaps; at any rate, she lifts her face with a look
that invites Reuben to speech.

"You came in a ship, didn't you?"

"Oh, yes! a big, big ship!"

"I should like to sail in a ship," said Reuben; "did you like it?"

"Not very much," said Adele, "the deck was so slippery, and the waves
were so high, oh, so high!"--and the little maid makes an explanatory
gesture with her two hands, the like of