father.

* * * * *

If there had been no other welcome to the minister's wife on her
Sabbath advent at Rehoboth, there was the welcome of Nature--the
welcome born of the bridal hour of morn with moorland, when the
awakening day bends over, and clasps with its glory the underlying
and far-reaching hills. From out a cloudless sky--save where
wreaths of vapour fringed the rounding blue--the sun put forth his
golden arms towards the heathery sweeps that lay with their
rounded bosoms greedy for his embrace, and gave himself in
wantonness to his bride, kissing her fair face into blushing
loveliness, and calling forth from the womb of the morning a
myriad forms of life. Earth lay breathless in the clasp of
heaven--they twain were one, perfect in union, and in spirit
undivided. Rehoboth was seductive with a sweetness known only to
the nuptials of Nature in a morning of sunshine on the moors.

It wanted two hours before service, and the young wife was
wandering among the flowers of the garden of the manse that was to
be her home, her spouse seated at his study window intent on the
manuscript of his morning's discourse. Intent? Nay, for his eye
often wandered from the underscored pages to the girl-wife who
glided with merry heart and lithe footstep from flower to flower,
her skirts wet as she swept the dew-jewels that glistened on the
lawn and borders of the gay parterres. She, poor girl! supposing
herself unwatched, drank deeply of the morning gladness, her
joyous step now and again falling into the rhythmic movements of a
dance. She even found herself humming airs that were not
sacred--airs forbidden even on weekdays in the puritanic precincts
of Rehoboth--airs she had learned in the distant city once her
home. Was she not happy? and does not happiness voice itself in
song? And is not the song of the happy always sacred--and sacred
even on the most sacred of days?

Alas! alas! little did the young wife know the puritanic mood of
Rehoboth. Behind the privet hedge fencing off the paradise, on
this good Sunday morning, lurked Amos Entwistle.

The old man, hearing the voice on his way to Sunday-school,
stopped, and, peeping through the fence, saw what confirmed his
bitterest prejudices against the woman whom Mr. Penrose had
married; and before a half-hour was passed every teacher and
scholar in Rehoboth school was told that 'th' parson bed wed a
doncin' lass fro' a theyater.'

Standing in hi