ting Widow Fairfield brimming high a glittering can,
which she designed for the refreshment of the thirsty hay-makers.

Mrs. Fairfield was a middle-aged, tidy woman, with that alert precision of
movement which seems to come from an active orderly mind; and as she now
turned her head briskly at the sound of the Parson's footsteps, she showed
a countenance prepossessing, though not handsome--a countenance from which
a pleasant hearty smile, breaking forth at that moment effaced some lines
that, in repose, spoke "of sorrows, but of sorrows past;" and her cheek,
paler than is common to the complexions even of the fair sex, when born
and bred amidst a rural population, might have favored the guess that the
earlier part of her life had been spent in the languid air and
"within-doors" occupation of a town.

"Never mind me," said the Parson, as Mrs. Fairfield dropped her quick
courtesy, and smoothed her apron; "if you are going into the hayfield, I
will go with you; I have something to say to Lenny--an excellent boy."

WIDOW.--"Well, sir, and you are kind to say to it--but he is."

PARSON.--"He reads uncommonly well, he writes tolerably; he is the best lad
in the whole school at his catechism and in the Bible lessons; and I
assure you, when I see his face at church, looking up so attentively, I
fancy that I shall read my sermon all the better for such a listener!"

WIDOW, wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron.--"'Deed, sir, when my
poor Mark died, I never thought I could have lived on as I have done. But
that boy is so kind and good, that when I look at him sitting there in
dear Mark's chair, and remember how Mark loved him, and all he used to say
to me about him, I feel somehow or other as if my goodman smiled on me,
and would rather I was not with him yet, till the lad had grown up, and
did not want me any more."

PARSON, looking away, and after a pause.--"You never hear any thing of the
old folks at Lansmere?"

"'Deed, sir, sin' poor Mark died, they han't noticed me, nor the boy;
but," added the widow, with all a peasant's pride, "it isn't that I wants
their money; only it's hard to feel strange like to one's own father and
mother!"

PARSON.--"You must excuse them. Your father, Mr. Avenel, was never quite
the same man after that sad event--but you are weeping, my friend, pardon
me:--your mother is a little proud; but so are you, though in another way."

WIDOW.--"I proud! Lord love ye, sir, I have not a bit of