ht little
sister, for she remembered well that even to her obtuse perceptions
there had come a pang when, after only three months abiding in a place
where the etiquette of life was rigidly enforced, she had returned to
their homely ways, and felt that it was worse than vain to try to effect
a change. But Helen's strong sense, with the help of two or three good
cries, had carried her safely through, and her humble home amid the
hills was very dear to her now. But she was Helen, as the mother had
said; she was different from Katy, who might be lonely and homesick,
sobbing herself to sleep in her patient sister's arms, as she did on
that first night in Canandaigua, which Helen remembered so well.

"It's better, too, now, than when I came home," Helen thought, as with
her rich, scarlet fruit she went slowly to the house. "Morris is here,
and the new church, and if she likes she can teach in Sunday school,
though maybe she will prefer going with Uncle Ephraim. He will be
pleased if she does," and, pausing by the door, Helen looked across
Fairy Pond in the direction of Silverton village, where the top of a
slender spire was just visible--the spire of St. John's, built within
the year, and mostly, as it was whispered, at the expense of Dr. Morris
Grant, who, a zealous churchman himself, had labored successfully to
instill into Helen's mind some of his own peculiar views, as well as to
awaken in Mrs. Lennox's heart the professions which had lain dormant for
as long a time as the little black-bound book had lain on the cupboard
shelf, forgotten and unread.

How the doctor's views were regarded by the deacon's family we shall
see, perhaps, by and by. At present our story has to do with Helen,
holding her bowl of berries by the rear door and looking across the
distant fields. With one last glance at the object of her thoughts she
re-entered the house, where her mother was arranging the square table
for dinner, bringing out the white stone china instead of the mulberry
set kept for everyday use.

"We ought to have had some silver forks before Katy came home," she
said, despondingly, as she laid by each plate the three-lined forks of
steel, to pay for which Helen and Katy had picked huckleberries on the
hills and dried apples from the orchard.

"Never mind, mother," Helen answered, cheerily; "if Katy is as she used
to be, she will care more for us than for silver forks, and I guess she
is, for I imagine it would take a great dea