d on dutifully by kind old servants, and might not soil our fingers
by any coarse work. Here I was taken into the dairy and the still-room,
and instructed in their mysteries, and in many another useful household
art; I might feed the pigeons and the other pretty feathered folk in the
barnyard, and I got no reproof for my coarse tastes when I was found
learning from Grace Standfast how to milk a cow, and making acquaintance
with young foals and calves. There were prettier works too; gathering
and making conserve of roses, and sharing in the pleasant harvest of the
strawberry beds and the cherry orchard, or tossing of hay in the
meadows. I will not deny that all these things were more pleasant to me
that year than they have ever been since; partly because I was so new
to them, and partly because Harry Truelocke often took part in them
also. My merry and kind playfellow, I wonder if you have yet any heart
for such simple pleasures? or if, in the midst of miseries and perils,
you can still jest and laugh?

Althea went with me and shared in these occupations, except in the
haymaking and the milking; but she did so with a grave and serious air,
seeming to give her whole mind to the work, as if it were a task she had
to learn, whereas I thought it but a delightful pastime that I loved in
spite of its being profitable.

Mrs. Golding took no note, as it seemed, of Althea's sad and steadfast
ways; but Andrew marked them, I could see, though, being daily busy with
out-door matters and cares of our aunt's estate, he was but little in
our company. When he was with us, he surrounded Althea with a careful,
watchful kindness, treating her so reverently as if she were some sacred
thing, and indeed never venturing to say much to her unless she spoke
first; all which she never appeared to notice.

Now it is a strange thing that in this pretty peaceful time the
stormiest day and the fruitfullest of future mischiefs should have been
a certain Lord's Day, only a week or two after our coming. It was from
Mr. Truelocke that I learnt to say 'the Lord's Day,' Sunday, said he,
being a heathenish, idolatrous word, nor would he allow of the fashion
of calling the day of rest 'the Sabbath.' 'We keep not holy,' said he,
'the seventh-day Sabbath of the people of Israel, but the first day made
holy for us by the resurrection of our Lord;' and I saying idly to him,
out of the poet Shakespeare, whom my father loved,--

'What's in a name? that which