oil. "This is a morning of
unalloyed happiness, Farquhar," remarked Miss Du Plessis in prose, and,
in the same humble style of composition, he answered: "Thank God,
Cecile! Think what it might have been had the worst happened to poor
Corry!"

"As it is," replied that lady, archly, "the worst has turned out for the
best."

"As it was with me," the dominie humbly responded, and relapsed into
silence.

Meanwhile, Marjorie trotted on ahead, and, her eyes, made observant by
former botanical expeditions on a small scale, found the purplish blue
five-flowered Gentian by the open roadside, the tall orange Asclepias
or Butterfly Weed, and the purple and yellow oak leaved Gerardias or
False Foxgloves in grassy stretches among the second growth. These she
bestowed on Jim, who begged to be allowed to present the most perfect
specimens to Miss Graves. The walkers were now on the top of the hill,
and strayed off into the overgrown clearing. A shout from Marjorie
declared that the berries had been reached, and within five minutes the
whole party was engaged in gathering, what Mr. Douglas hailed with
delight as "brammles." Marjorie accused the colonel of picking for his
own mouth, but this was a libel. He picked for Mrs. Du Plessis, whom he
established under the shade of a straggling striped maple of tender
growth. That lady received the tribute of brother Paul very gracefully,
and darkened her lips with the ripe berries, much to the colonel's
amusement and their mutual gratification. Miss Halbert stood over Basil,
and so punished him with a sunshade, whenever he abstracted fruit for
personal consumption, that the man became infatuated and persisted in
his career of wrong doing, till he was deprived of his basket, which he
only received back after an abject apology delivered on his knees, and a
solemn promise to have regard to the general weal. Miss Du Plessis and
the dominie would have done well, had not the worship of nature and
human nature, in prose and in verse, withheld their hands from labour,
and fortunately, as Mr. Perrowne remarked, from picking and stealing.
Mr. Douglas was absorbed in admiration for Miss Graves, who, thinking
nothing of the handsome picture she made, attended strictly to business,
and roused him to emulation in basket filling. Marjorie, with her
oft-replenished tin can, aided them time about impartially, as the only
honest workers worthy of recognition. Steadily, they toiled away, until
the rising sun a