f thought are
covered under the shape of some charming plea for a kindness to herself
or the "dear girls," which she knows that he will not have the hardihood
to resist. And even this method she does not push too far,--making it a
cardinal point in her womanly strategy that his home shall be always
grateful to the Squire,--that he shall never be driven from it by any
thought or suspicion of her exactions. Thus, if Grace--who is her oldest
daughter, and almost woman grown--has some evening appointment at Bible
class, or other such gathering, and, the boys being out, appeals timidly
to the father, good Mrs. Elderkin says,--

"I am afraid your papa is too tired, Grace; do let him enjoy himself."

At which the Squire, shaking off his lethargy, says,--

"Get your things, child!"

And as he goes out with Grace, he is rewarded by one of those tender
smiles upon the lip of the mother which captivated him twenty years
before, and which still make his fireside the most cherished spot in the
town.

No wonder that the little half-orphaned creature, Adele, with her
explosive warmth of heart, is kindly received among the Elderkins. Phil
was some three years her senior, a ruddy-faced, open-hearted fellow, who
had been well-nurtured, like his two elder brothers, but in whom a
certain waywardness just now appearing was attributed very much, by the
closely observing mother, to the influence of that interesting, but
mischievous boy, Reuben. Phil was the superior in age, indeed, and in
muscle, (as we may find proof,) but in nerve-power the more
delicate-featured boy of the parson outranked him.

Rose Elderkin was a year younger than the French stranger, and a
marvellously fair type of New England girl-beauty: light brown hair in
unwieldy masses; skin wonderfully clear and transparent, and that
flushed at a rebuke, or a run down the village street, till her cheeks
blazed with scarlet; a lip delicately thin, but blood-red, and
exquisitely cut; a great hazel eye, that in her moments of glee, or any
occasional excitement, fairly danced and sparkled with a kind of insane
merriment, and at other times took on a demure and pensive look, which
to future wooers might possibly prove the more dangerous of the two. The
features named make up a captivating girlish beauty, but one which,
under a New England atmosphere, is rarely carried forward into
womanhood. The lips grow pinched and bloodless; the skin blanched
against all proof of blushes; th