turn to gaze on
you."

"Oh, no! Mittie is grown so beautiful no one could think of any one else
when she is near."

"The young man with the long black hair thinks her beautiful? Does he
not?"

"I believe so. Who could help it?"

"Does she love you better than she used to?" asked Miss Thusa.

"I will try to deserve her love," replied Helen, evasively; "but, Miss
Thusa, I am coming every day to take spinning lessons of you. I really
want to learn to spin. Perhaps father may fail one of these days, and I
be thrown on my own resources, and then I could earn my living as you do
now. Will you bequeath me your wheel, Miss Thusa?"

The bright smile with which she looked up to Miss Thusa, died away in a
kind of awe, as she met the solemn earnestness of her glance.

"Yes, yes, child, I have long intended it as a legacy of love to you.
There is a history hanging to it, which I will tell you by and by. For
more than forty years that wheel and I have been companions and friends,
and it is so much a part of myself, that if any one should cut into the
old carved wood, I verily believe the blood-drops would drip from my
heart. Things will grow together, powerfully, Helen, after a long, long
time. And so you want to learn to spin, child. Well! suppose you sit
down and try. These little white fingers will soon be cut by the flax,
though, I can tell you."

"May I, Miss Thusa, may I?" cried Helen, seating herself with childish
delight at the venerable instrument, and giving it a whirl that might
have made the flax smoke. Miss Thusa looked on with a benevolent and
patronizing air, while Helen pressed her foot upon the treadle,
wondering why it would jerk so, when it went round with Miss Thusa so
smoothly, and pulled out the flax at arm's length, wondering why it
would run into knots and bunches, when it glided so smooth and even
through Miss Thusa's practiced fingers. Helen was so busy, and so
excited by the new employment, she did not perceive a shadow cross the
window, nor was she aware of the approach of any one, till an unusually
gay laugh made her turn her head.

"I thought Miss Thusa looked wonderfully rejuvenated," said Arthur
Hazleton, leaning against the window-frame on the outside of the
building, "but methinks she is the more graceful spinner, after all."

"This is only my first lesson," cried Helen, jumping up, for the band
had slipped from the groove, and hung in a hopeless tangle--"and I fear
Miss Thusa will neve