er was married and had two children. She had grown up
very pretty--a fair woman, with liquid misleading eyes. They looked
as if they were gazing into the far future, but they did not see an
inch beyond the farm. Anna was a very plain copy of her in body; in
mind she was the elder sister's echo. They were very fond of each
other, and the prettiest thing about them was their faithful love
for their mother, whose memory was kept as green as pastures after
rain.

Peter Paul's temperament, however, was not one that could adapt itself
to a stagnant existence; so when his three weeks on shore are ended,
we see him on his way from the Home Farm to join his ship:

Leena walked far over the pastures with Peter Paul. She was very
fond of him, and she had a woman's perception that they would miss
him more than he could miss them.

"I am very sorry you could not settle down with us," she said, and
her eyes brimmed over.

Peter Paul kissed the tears tenderly from her cheeks.

"Perhaps I shall when I am older, and have shaken off a few more of
my whims into the sea. I'll come back yet, Leena, and live very
near to you, and grow tulips, and be as good an old bachelor-uncle
to your boy as Uncle Jacob is to me."

* * * * *

When they got to the hillock where Mother used to sit, Peter Paul
took her once more into his arms.

"Good-bye, good sister," he said, "I have been back in my childhood
again, and GOD knows that is both pleasant and good for one."

"And it is funny that you should say so," said Leena, smiling
through her tears; "for when we were children you were never happy
except in thinking of when you should be a man."

And with this salutary home-thrust (which thoroughly commonplace
minds have such a provoking faculty for giving) Leena went back to her
children and cattle.

Happy for the artistic temperament that can profit by such rebuffs!

PART III.

Yet, how few believe such doctrine springs
From a poor root,
Which all the winter sleeps here under foot,
And hath no wings
To raise it to the truth and light of things;
But is stil trod
By ev'ry wand'ring clod.

O Thou, Whose Spirit did at first inflame
And warm the dead,
And by a sacred incubation fed
With life this frame,