for such a listener!"

WIDOW (wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron).--"'Deed, sir, when
my poor Mark died, I never thought I could have lived on as I have done.
But that boy is so kind and good, that when I look at him sitting there
in dear Mark's chair, and remember how Mark loved him, and all he used
to say to me about him, I feel somehow or other as if my good man smiled
on me, and would rather I was not with him yet, till the lad had grown
up, and did not want me any more."

PARSON (looking away, and after a pause).--"You never hear anything of
the old folks at Lansmere?"

"'Deed, sir, sin' poor Mark died, they han't noticed me nor the boy;
but," added the widow, with all a peasant's pride, "it isn't that I
wants their money; only it's hard to feel strange like to one's own
father and mother!"

PARSON.--"You must excuse them. Your father, Mr. Avenel, was never quite
the same man after that sad event which--but you are weeping, my friend,
pardon me; your mother is a little proud; but so are you, though in
another way."

WIDOW.--"I proud! Lord love ye, sir, I have not a bit o' pride in me!
and that's the reason they always looked down on me."

PARSON.--"Your parents must be well off; and I shall apply to them in a
year or two on behalf of Lenny, for they promised me to provide for him
when he grew up, as they ought."

WIDOW (with flashing eyes).--"I am sure, sir, I hope you will do no such
thing; for I would not have Lenny beholden to them as has never given
him a kind word sin' he was born!"

The parson smiled gravely, and shook his head at poor Mrs. Fairfield's
hasty confutation of her own self-acquittal from the charge of pride;
but he saw that it was not the time or moment for effectual peace-making
in the most irritable of all rancours,--namely, that nourished against
one's nearest relations. He therefore dropped the subject, and said,
"Well, time enough to think of Lenny's future prospects; meanwhile we
are forgetting the haymakers. Come."

The widow opened the back door, which led across a little apple orchard
into the fields.

PARSON.--"You have a pleasant place here; and I see that my friend Lenny
should be in no want of apples. I had brought him one, but I have given
it away on the road."

WIDOW.--"Oh, sir, it is not the deed,--it is the will; as I felt
when the squire, God bless him! took two pounds off the rent the year
he--that is, Mark--died."

PARSON.--"If Lenny continues to be