bolt upright, with both hands clasped downward on the
letter.

"It was only found last night," said Ruth, rising and making a single
step towards her. "From the hour you wrote it until then it was never
seen. Reuben found it and brought it to me."

The old maid's face went white, and but that the chair she had thrust
away from her in rising rested against the mantle-piece, she would have
fallen. Ruth ran towards her and set a protecting arm about her waist.
Her own tears were falling fast, and her voice was altogether broken.
"It was in Manzini, the book you took Reuben's letter from. He found it
there, and thought it came from me, until he saw that the paper was old,
and that it did not quite answer his own letter. He took it to his uncle
Ezra, and the poor old man's heart is broken. Oh, aunt, his heart is
broken! He had never seen it. He had waited, waited--"

She could say no more, she was so agitated by her own words, and so
stricken by the stony face before her.

Suddenly the old maid melted into tears. Reuben, sitting and waiting on
the bank of the hedge without, had heard Ruth's broken voice, and now he
could hear Rachel weeping. The night was without a sound, and he could
hear nothing but the murmurs and sobbings from the little sitting-room.
Rachel cried unrestrainedly and long, and Reuben waited with exemplary
patience. At last Ruth came out and whispered to him,

"Tell father I am going to stay with Aunt Rachel to-night."

Reuben, naturally enough, would have kept her there and questioned her,
but she ran back into the cottage before he could detain her, and after
lingering a while bareheaded before the casket which held her, he took
his way back to Fuller and gave him his daughter's message.

"Ah!" said Fuller. "At that rate it 'ud seem to be pretty well
straightened out betwigst 'em. I'm glad to think it, for theer's nothin'
like, harmony among them as is tied together. But hows'ever her an' the
wench may mek it up, Reuben, thee'lt be a villin till the end o' the
chapter." The villany attributed to Reuben and Ezra tickled the old man
greatly, and his fat body was so agitated by his mirth that his legs
became unequal to their burden. He had to drop into his great cushioned
arm-chair to have his laugh out. "That villany o' thine 'll be the death
o' me," he said, as he wiped his eyes.

Rachel and Ruth sat far into the night, and the old maid told over and
over again the story of the courtship and the m