was startled at seeing in the pale moonlight a long, ghostly
white face peering in at the window.

"It was only Peter, that had slipped his halter and wandered round to
the old place looking for his master. He allowed them to lead him back
to his stable, but every time the door was opened he whinnied and turned
his head. As the days passed and the step he waited for came no more,
hope changed to patient grief. His food often remained untasted; he
refused to go out into the sunshine; and so, gradually wasting and
without much bodily suffering, he one day laid himself down and his life
slipped quietly away.

"He was buried outside the grave-yard, at the top of the hill, as near
as might be to the granite head-stone that recorded the virtues of 'Ye
most faithful Servant and Man of God Silus Timothy Lorrimer Who for 52
Yrs did Minister to This Ch and Congregation in Spiritual Things.

'The faithful Memory of The Just
Shall Flourish When they turn To Dust.'

"Peter has no head-stone to mark his grave, but his memory is green in
Hilltown. The old folks love to tell of his beauty, his intelligence,
and his life-long devotion to his master; and there is a tradition
handed down and repeated half-seriously, half in jest, that when
Gabriel blows his trumpet on the resurrection morning, and the dead in
Hilltown grave-yard awake, Parson Lorrimer will lead his flock to the
judgment riding on a white horse."

CHAPTER XI.

THE QUILTING.

The patchwork quilt was finished. The pieces of calico Miss Ruth from
week to week had measured and cut and basted together, with due regard
to contrast and harmony of colors, were transformed into piles of
gay-colored blocks; the blocks multiplied and extended themselves into
strips, and the strips basted together had kept sixteen little hands
"sewing the long seam" for three Wednesday afternoons. And now it was
finished, and the quilting had begun.

Miss Ruth had decided, after a consultation with the minister's wife,
that the girls might do this most important and difficult part of the
business. She wanted the gift to be theirs from beginning to end--that,
having furnished all the material, they should do all the work. How
pleased and proud they were to be thus trusted, you can imagine, while
the satisfaction they took in the result of the summer's labor repaid
their leader a hundred-fold for her share in the enterprise.

Never was a quilt so admired and praised. Of all t