alking politics, the roofing of the chapel and the price of
wheat and so Westways settled down again to its every-day quiet round of
duties.

The excitement of the fire and Lamb's flight had been unfavourable to
literary composition, but now John returned to his letter. He continued:

"The reticule will have to be finished in town. Uncle will take it after
the election or send it to you. If you remember your Latin, you will know
that reticule comes from _reticulus,_ a net. But this isn't really a net.

"We have had a big excitement. Some one set fire to the parsonage and it
burnt down." [He did not tell her who set it on fire, although he knew
very well that it was Peter Lamb.] "Lamb has run away, and I think we are
well rid of him.

"I do miss you very much. Mr. Rivers says you will be a fashionable young
lady when you come back and will never snowball any more. I don't believe
it.

"Yours truly,

"JOHN PENHALLOW."

Mrs. Penhallow enclosed the letter in one of her own, and no answer came
until she gave him a note at the end of October. Leila wrote:

"DEAR JOHN: It is against the rules to write to any one but parents, and
I am breaking the rules when I enclose this to you. I do not think I
ought to do it, and I will not again.

"You would not know me in my long skirts, and I wear my hair in two
plaits. The girls are all from the South and are very angry when they
talk about the North. I cannot answer them and am sorry I do not know
more about politics, but I do know that Uncle Jim would not agree with
them.

"I go on Saturdays and over Sundays to my cousins in Baltimore. They say
that the South will secede if Fremont should be elected. I just hold my
tongue and listen.

"Yours sincerely,

"LEILA GREY.

"P.S. I shall be very proud of the bag. I hope you are studying hard."

"Indeed!" muttered John. "Thanks, Miss Grey." There was no more of it.

John Penhallow had come by degrees to value the rare privilege of a
walk with the too easily wearied clergyman, who had avenues of ready
intellectual approach which invited the adventurous mind of the lad and
were not in the mental topography of James Penhallow. The cool, hazy days
of late October had come with their splendour of colour-contrasts such as
only the artist nature could make acceptable, and this year the autumn
was unusually brilliant.

"Do you enjoy it?" asked Rivers.

"Oh, yes, sir. I suppose every one does."

"In a measure, as some people do