to tea in a dark, fashionably-made merino, the
metamorphose was complete, and grandma declared that she looked better
than she ever had before in her life. The doctor, too, was improved,
and though he did not color his hair, he ordered six new shirts, a new
coat, a new horse and a pair of gold spectacles!

After a due lapse of time the appointed day came, and with it, at an
early hour, came Cousin John and Elizabeth Betsey, bringing with them
the few herbs which Berintha, at the time of her removal, had
overlooked. These Bridget demurely proposed should be given to Miss
Lucy, "who of late was much given to drinking catnip." Perfectly
indignant, Lucy threw the herbs, bag and all, into the fire, thereby
filling the house with an odor which made the asthmatic old doctor
wheeze and blow wonderfully during the evening.

A few of the villagers were invited, and when all was ready Mr. Dayton
brought down in his arms his white-faced Lizzie, who imperceptibly
had grown paler and weaker every day, while those who looked at her as
she reclined upon the sofa, sighed, and thought of a different
occasion when they probably would assemble there. For once Lucy was
very amiable, and with the utmost politeness and good nature waited
upon the guests. There was a softened light in her eye, and a
heightened bloom on her cheek, occasioned by a story which Berintha,
two hours before, had told her, of a heart all crushed in its youth,
and aching on through long years of loneliness, but which was about to
be made happy by a union with the only object it had ever loved! Do
you start and wonder? Have you not guessed that Dr. Benton, who that
night for the second time breathed the marriage vow, was the same who,
years before, won the girlish love of Berintha Dayton, and then turned
from her to the more beautiful Amy Holbrook, finding, too late, that
all is not gold that glitters? It is even so, and could you have seen
how tightly he clasped the hand of his new wife, and how fondly his
eye rested upon her, you would have said that, however long his
affections might have wandered, they had at last returned to her, his
first, best love.

CHAPTER XI.

LIZZIE.

Gathered 'round a narrow coffin,
Stand a mourning, funeral train,
While for her, redeemed thus early,
Tears are falling now like rain.

Hopes are crushed and hearts are bleeding;
Drear the fireside now, and alone;
She, the best loved and the dea