ime were cruel
and hard to bear. There was Roger Allan and that lonely stone in the
peaceful cemetery. It still seemed a cruel tragedy. Like Mrs. Jerry
Dustin she wondered often about it.

The soft spring night was full of memories and the wood fire sang of
them sadly, sweetly and softly. Grandma rose and mentally shook
herself.

"I declare, I believe I'm lonely or getting old or something," Grandma
chided herself; "here I am poking at the bygone years like an old maid
with the heartache and here's the whole world terribly alive and
needing attention. And here's Cynthia's boy back from India, and a
real Green Valley kind of minister, I do believe; a straightforward
chap to tell us of life, its miracles and mysteries; of God and
eternity as he honestly thinks, but mostly of love and the little happy
ways of earthly living. A man who won't be always dividing us into
sheep and goats but will show us the sheep and the goat in ourselves.
This is a queer old town and it almost seems as if a minister wouldn't
hardly have to know so much about heaven as about fighting neighbors
and chickens, gossiping folks like Fanny and drunken ones like Jim
Tumley. Well, maybe,--"

But just then she looked up and found David Allan laughing at her from
the doorway.

"Stop dreaming and scolding yourself, Grandma," laughed David.
"There's a little city girl living up on the hill back of Will Turner's
who needs you most awful bad. I offered to bring her down here but she
thinks it wouldn't be proper. She says you haven't called and she
wants to do things right and that maybe you wouldn't want to know her.
She's mighty lonely and strange about Green Valley ways of doing
things. I most wished to-day that I was a woman so I could help her.
Her mother's been sick more or less since they come here and she's
looking after things herself. I'd like to help her but there's things
a man just can't tell a girl or do for her. Uncle Roger sent me over
here to tell you to come across and talk about some church matters with
him. But I think this little girl business ought to be tended to right
away."

"Rains and gossip and new girls and first violets. I declare, it _is_
spring, David. And Nanny Ainslee is back. Of course, I'll see about
that little girl. You tell her I'm coming to call on her the day after
tomorrow. Tell her I'll come up the woodsy side of her garden and I'll
be wearing my pink sunbonnet and third best gingham apron."