rning
sun climbing over One-Tree Hill, catching the larch-wood, and creeping
down the broad slope of our field; thence up toward Redwood and
Leckington--until, while the dews yet lay thick on our shadowed valley,
Leckington Hill was all in a glow of light. Delicious, too, to hear
the little ones running in and out, bright and merry as children ought
to be in the first wholesome hours of the day--to see them feeding
their chickens and petting their doves--calling every minute on father
or mother to investigate and enjoy some wonder in farm-yard or garden.
And either was ever ready to listen to the smallest of these little
mysteries, knowing that nothing in childhood is too trivial for the
notice, too foolish for the sympathy, of those on whom the Father of
all men has bestowed the holy dignity of parenthood.

I could see them now, standing among the flower-beds, out in the sunny
morning, the father's tall head in the centre of the group--for he was
always the important person during the brief hour or two that he was
able to be at home. The mother close beside him, and both knotted
round with an interlaced mass of little arms and little eager faces,
each wanting to hear everything and to look at everything--everybody to
be first and nobody last. None rested quiet or mute for a second,
except the one who kept close as his shadow to her father's side, and
unwittingly was treated by him less like the other children, than like
some stray spirit of another world, caught and held jealously, but
without much outward notice, lest haply it might take alarm, and vanish
back again unawares. Whenever he came home and did not see her waiting
at the door, his first question was always--"Where's Muriel?"

Muriel's still face looked very bright this morning--the Monday morning
after the election--because her father was going to be at home the
whole day. It was the annual holiday he had planned for his
work-people. This only "dinner-party" we had ever given, was in its
character not unlike that memorable feast, to which were gathered the
poor, the lame, the halt, and the blind--all who needed, and all who
could not return, the kindness. There were great cooking
preparations--everything that could make merry the heart of man--tea,
to comfort the heart of woman, hard-working woman--and lots of bright
pennies and silver groats to rejoice the very souls of youth.

Mrs. Halifax, Jem Watkins, and his Jenny, were as busy as bees all
mo