y road in his old
robust fashion, on his way to the farm-house. She ran across the field
to the fence, calling his name. Miss Lois followed, but more slowly; her
mind was in a turmoil regarding his unexpected arrival, and the
difficulty of making him comprehend or conform to the net-work of fable
she had woven round their history.

The old priest gave Anne his blessing; he was much moved at seeing her
again. She held his hand in both of her own, and could scarcely realize
that it was he, her dear old island friend, standing there in person
beside her.

"Dear, dear Pere Michaux, how good you are to come!" she said,
incoherently, the tears filling her eyes, half in sorrow, half in joy.

Miss Lois now came up and greeted him. "I am glad to see you," she said.
Then, in the same breath: "Our names, Father Michaux, are Young;
Young--please remember."

"How good you are to come!" said Anne again, the weight on her heart
lightened for the moment as she looked into the clear, kind, wise old
eyes that met her own.

"Not so very good," said Pere Michaux, smiling. "I have been wishing to
see you for some time, and I think I should have taken the journey
before long in any case. Vacations are due me; it is years since I have
had one, and I am an old man now."

"You will never be old," said the girl, affectionately.

"Young is the name," repeated Miss Lois, with unconscious
appositeness--"Deborah and Ruth Young."

"I am glad at least that I am not too old to help you, my child,"
answered Pere Michaux, paying little heed to the elder woman's anxious
voice.

They were still standing by the road-side. Pere Michaux proposed that
they should remain in the open air while the beautiful hues of the
sunset lasted, and they therefore returned to the field, and sat down
under an elm-tree. Under ordinary circumstances, Miss Lois would have
strenuously objected to this sylvan indulgence, having peculiarly
combative feelings regarding dew; but this evening the maze of doubt in
which she was wandering as to whether or not Pere Michaux would stay in
her web made dew a secondary consideration. Remaining in the fields
would at least give time.

Pere Michaux was as clear-headed and energetic as ever. After the first
few expressions of gladness and satisfaction, it was not long before he
turned to Anne, and spoke of the subject which lay before them. "Tell me
all," he said. "This is as good a time and place as any we could have,
and there