ing out the juice of the
grape from her classic urn. And the Parson felt as harmless, if not as
elegant a pleasure in contemplating 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 it--but so 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 anything 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,
pard