on 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 pride in me!
and that's the reason they always looked down on me."

_Parson._--"Your parents must be well off; and I shall apply to them in a
year or two in behalf of Lenny, for they promised me to provide for him
when he grew up, as they ought."

_Widow_, with flashing eyes.--"I am sure, sir, I hope you will do no such
thing; for I would not have Lenny beholden to them as has never given him
a kind word sin' he was born!"

The Parson smiled gravely and shook his head at poor Mrs. Fairfield's
hasty confutation of her own self-acquittal from the charge of pride; but
he saw that it was not the time or moment for effectual peace-making in
the most irritable of all rancors, viz., that nourished against one's
nearest relations. He therefore dropped the subject, and said,--"Well,
time enough to think of Lenny's future prospects; meanwhile we are
forgetting the haymakers. Come."

The widow opened the back door, which led across a little apple orchard
into the fields.

_Parson._--"You have a pleasant place here; and I see that my friend
Lenny should be in no want of apples. I had brought him one, but I have
given it away on the road."

_Widow._--"Oh, sir, it is not the deed--it is the will; as I felt when
the Squire, God bless him! took two pounds off the rent the year he-that
is, Mark--died."

_Parson._--"If Lenny continues to be such a help to you, it will not be
long before the Squire may put the two pounds on again."

"Yes, sir," said the widow simply; "I hope he will."

"Silly woman!" muttered the Parson. "That's not exactly what the
schoolmistress would have said. You don't read nor write, Mrs. Fairfield;
yet you express yourself with great propriety."

"You know Mark was a schollard, sir, like my poor, poor, sister; and
though I was a sad stupid girl afore I married, I tried to take after him
when we came together."

* * * * *

CHAPTER IV.

They were now in the hayfield, and a boy of about sixteen, but, like most
country lads, to appearance much younger than he was, looked up from his
rake, with lively blue eyes, beaming forth under a profusion of brown
curly hair.

Leonard Fairfield was indeed a very handsome boy--not so stout nor so
ruddy as one would choose for the ideal of rustic beauty; nor yet so
delicate in limb and keen in