I'm rare
upset about it, I can tell ye."

"It doesn't say what she died o'," said Joshua meditatively, twirling
the letter in his brown fingers.

"Died o'?" repeated Miss Hepsy tartly. "Why, of pinin' arter that
husband o' her'n. What's her fine scholar done for her now, I wonder?
Left her a lone widder to die off and leave penniless children to
other folks to keep. But I'll warrant they'll work for their meat at
Thankful Rest. I'll have no stuck-up idle notions here."

"How am I to get to Newhaven jes' now, I'd like to know," said
Joshua, "and all that corn waitin' to be stacked? It's clean beyond
me."

Miss Hepsy thought a moment. "I have it. Miss Goldthwaite was here
to-day, an' she said the parson was goin' to Newhaven to-morrow to
stay a day or two. We'll get him to see to things an' bring the
children down. I'll go to Pendlepoint whenever I've got my supper,
an' ask him. Here, ask the grace quick an' let's be hurryin'," she
said; and before the few mumbled words had fallen from Joshua's lips,
Miss Hepsy was well through with her first cup of tea!

At that moment, in a darkened chamber in a quiet city street, two
orphan children clung to each other weeping, wondering fearfully to
see so white, and cold, and still, the sweet face which had been wont
to smile upon them as only a mother can.

They wept, but the days were at hand when they would realize more
bitterly than now what they had lost, and how utterly they were left
alone.

II.

THE PARSONAGE.

In the pleasant front parlour of the parsonage at Pendlepoint, the
Rev. Frank Goldthwaite and his sister were lingering over their
tea-table. He was a young man, tall and broad-shouldered, with an
open kindly face, and grave thoughtful eyes, which yet at times could
sparkle with merriment as bright as that which so often shone in his
sister's blue orbs. A bright, winsome, lovable maiden was Carrie
Goldthwaite, the very joy of her brother's heart, and the apple of
every eye in the township. The brother and sister were deeply
attached to each other, the fact that they were separated from their
father's happy home in New York drawing them the more closely
together. They had been talking of Mr. Goldthwaite's projected visit
on the morrow, and he had at last succeeded in repeating faithfully
all the commissions his sister wished him to execute, when the
swinging of the garden gate, and a firm tread on the gravel, made
Miss Goldthwaite rise and peep behind