ietly and rapidly away, Alida
becoming almost as much absorbed in her interests as he in his. Every
hour added to the beauty of the season without. The unplowed fields
were taking on a vivid green, and Holcroft said that on the following
Monday the cows should go out to pasture. Wholesome, agreeable
occupation enabled Alida to put away sad thoughts and memories. Nature
and pleasant work are two potent healers, and she was rallying fast
under their ministry. Holcroft would have been blind indeed had he not
observed changes for the better. Her thin cheeks were becoming fuller,
and her exertions, with the increasing warmth of the season, often
flushed her face with a charming color. The old sad and troubled
expression was passing away from her blue eyes. Every day it seemed
easier for her to laugh, and her step grew more elastic. It was all so
gradual that he never questioned it, but his eyes followed her with
increasing pleasure and he listened, when she spoke, with deepening
interest. Sundays had been long and rather dreary days, but now he
positively welcomed their coming and looked forward to the hours when,
instead of brooding over the past, he should listen to her pleasant
voice reading his few and neglected books. There was a new atmosphere
in his home--a new influence, under which his mind was awakening in
spite of his weariness and absorption in the interests of the farm.
Alida was always ready to talk about these, and her questions would
soon enable her to talk understandingly. She displayed ignorance
enough, and this amused him, but her queries evinced no stupidity. In
reading to her father and in the cultivation of flowers, she had
obtained hints of vital horticultural principles, and Holcroft said to
her laughingly one evening at supper, "You'll soon learn all I know and
begin to teach me."

Her manner of deprecating such remarks was to exaggerate them and she
replied, "Yes, next week you will sell my eggs and I shall subscribe
for the agricultural paper my father used to take. Then will begin all
the improvements of book-farming. I shall advise you to sow oats in
June, plant corn in March, and show you generally that all your
experience counts for nothing."

This kind of badinage was new to the farmer, and it amused him
immensely. He did not grow sleepy so early in the evening, and as he
was driving his work prosperously he shortened his hours of labor
slightly. She also found time to read