tter. Now wait a moment;
let me walk some more. Now write: 'It is not good for man to be alone,
because'--because--let me see; where--ah, yes!--'because rightly self
is the'--Ah! no, no, my boy; not a capital S for 'self'--ah! that's
the very point,--small _s_,--'because rightly self is the smallest
part of us. Even God found it good not to be alone, but to
create'--got that?--'to create objects for His love and benevolence.'
Yes--'And because in my poor, small way I am made like Him, the whole
world becomes a part of me'--small _m_, yes, that is right!" From
bending a moment over the writer, the priest straightened up and took
a step backward. The boy lifted his glance to where the sunlight and
leaf-shadows were playing on his guardian's face. The cure answered
with a warm smile, saying:

"My boy, God is a very practical God--no, you need not write it;
just listen a moment. Yes; and so when He gave us natures like
His, He gave men not wives only, but brethren and sisters and
companions and strangers, in order that benevolence, yes, and even
self-sacrifice,--mistakenly so called,--might have no lack of
direction and occupation; and then bound the whole human family
together by putting every one's happiness into some other one's
hands. I see you do not understand: never mind; it will come to you
little by little. It was a long time coming to me. Let us go in to
supper."

The good man had little hope of such words taking hold. At school next
day there was Zosephine with her soft electric glances to make the boy
forget all; and at the Saturday-night balls there she was again.

"Bonaventure," her manner plainly said, "did you ever see any thing
else in this wide world so tiresome as these boys about here? Stay
with me; it keeps them away." She never put such thoughts into words.
With an Acadian girl such a thing was impossible But girls do not need
words. She drew as potently, and to all appearances as impassively, as
a loadstone. All others than Bonaventure she repelled. If now and then
she toyed with a heart, it was but to see her image in it once or
twice and toss it aside. All got one treatment in the main. Any one of
them might gallop by her father's veranda seven times a day, but not
once in all the seven would she be seen at the window glancing up at
the weather or down at her flowers; nor on the veranda hanging up
fresh hanks of yarn; nor at the well with the drinking-pail, getting
fresh water, as she might so e