esent that is enough, that is wisest." And then his heart went
back to her, and how happy they were. He stopped a moment, looking up at
the stars, and saying, with a breathless awe in his voice, "My God, how
good Thou art, how happy I am!"

CHAPTER VII.

The little stir which the arrival of the Forsythes made in Ashurst was
delightful.

"Of course," as Mrs. Dale said, "Arabella Forsythe had not been born
there, and could not be expected to be just like Ashurst people; but it
was something to have a new person to talk to, even if you had to talk
about medicines most of the time."

Lois Howe enjoyed it, for there were very few young people in Ashurst
that summer; the two Drayton girls had gone away to visit a married
brother, and there were no young men now Gifford had gone. So it was
pleasant to have a person of her own age to talk to, and sometimes to
walk with, though the rector never felt quite sure what his sister would
say to that. However, Mrs. Dale had nothing to say; she shut her eyes to
any impropriety, and even remarked severely to Miss Deborah Woodhouse
that those old-fashioned ideas of a girl's being always under her
mother's eye, were prim and old maidish; "and beside, Lois's mother is
dead," she added, with a sort of triumph in her voice.

As for Lois, she almost forgot that she had thought Ashurst lonely when
Helen had gone, and Gifford; for of course, in so small a place, every
one counted. She had wondered, sometimes, before the Forsythes came, with
a self-consciousness which was a new experience, if any one thought she
missed Gifford. But her anxiety was groundless,--Ashurst imagination
never rose to any such height; and certainly, if the letters the young
man wrote to her could have been seen, such a thought would not have been
suggested. They were pleasant and friendly; very short, and not very
frequent; mostly of Helen and what she did; there was almost nothing of
himself, and the past, at least as far as a certain night in June was
concerned, was never mentioned. At first this was a relief to Lois, but
by and by came a feeling too negative to be called pique, or even
mortification at having been forgotten; it was rather an intangible
soreness in her memory of him.

"It is just as Miss Deborah says," she said to herself: "young men always
forget those things. And it is better that they do. Gifford never thinks
of what he said to me, and I'm sure I'm glad he doesn't--but still!" And
the