rnful in their brevity.

Minnie sat down upon a rustic seat, and gave herself up to one of those
delicious day-dreams which lure the spirit as the mirage lures the
traveller.

She began to sing softly to herself--

"Thou'lt break my heart thou warbling bird,
That wantons through the flowering thorn;
Thou 'minds me o' departed joys,
Departed--never to return."

Why those lines were suggested, and why her voice should falter in
sadness, and why tears should spring to her eyes, she did not know. To
some spirits the calm beauty of nature, and the warm air that breathes
in balm and healing, express the deepest pathos. The contrast between
the passion and suffering of life, and the calm assurance of unruffled
joy which nature suggests, pierces the heart with an exquisite sadness.

Poor Minnie, she sang the lines of "Bonnie, Doon," all unconscious that
they would ever have any relation to her experience.

But Minnie would bear her grief, and say, "God is love."

She had never subscribed to a creed, and although Mill and Huxley were
strangers to her, her whole nature protested against any system of which
violence was one of the factors.

Minnie was simply good. When she encountered suffering, and found that
it was too great for human relief, she would whisper to her heart, "By
and by." What by and by meant explained all to Minnie.

We spend years upon the study of character, and the cardinal features
often escape us. A dog has but to glance once into a human face. He
comprehends goodness in a moment. The ownerless dogs of the village
analyzed Minnie's nature, and found it satisfactory. They beamed upon
her with looks of wistful love. She had them in the spring and summer
for her daily escort to the mountain.

That was a testimonial of fine ethical value.

"Why, what am I dreaming about?" Minnie exclaimed, after she had sat for
about an hour. "Why are my eyes wet? Why do I feel a sadness which I
cannot define? Am I not happy? Isn't Donald coming to see me? Will we
not be together again? Isn't the sun bright and warm, and our little
home cheerful and happy? Fancies, dreams, and forebodings, away with
you. I must run home and help mother to make that salad for dinner."

The world wants not so much learned, as simple, modest, reverent women,
to sweeten and redeem it!

CHAPTER XIV. THE BEGINNING OF THE TROUBLE.

We will not afflict the reader with all the complexities of a dispute
which for months e