enew it is to look out for the young ones."

The parson had always had with her a way of reading her thought and
bursting out boyishly into betrayal of his own.

"Mary Ellen," he cried, "I never should have explained it so, but Isabel
looks like you!"

She smiled sadly. "I guess men make themselves think 'most anything they
want to," she answered. "There may be a family look, but I can't see it.
She's tall, too, and I was always a pint o' cider--so father said."

"She's got the same look in her eyes," pursued the parson hotly. "I've
always thought so, ever since she was a little girl."

"If you begun to notice it then," she responded, with the same gentle
calm, "you'd better by half ha' been thinking of your own wife and her
eyes. I believe they were black."

"Mary Ellen, how hard you are on me! You did't use to be. You never were
hard on anybody. You wouldn't have hurt a fly."

Her face contracted slightly. "Perhaps I wouldn't! perhaps I wouldn't!
But I've had a good deal to bear this afternoon, and maybe I do feel a
little different towards you from what I ever have felt. I've been
hearing a loose-tongued woman tell how my own niece has been made
town-talk because a man old enough to know better was running after
her. I said, years ago, I never would come into this place while you
was in it; but when I heard that, I felt as if Providence had marked out
the way. I knew I was the one to step into the breach. So I had Tim
harness up and bring me over, and here I am. William, I don't want you
should make a mistake at your time of life!"

The minister seemed already a younger man. A strong color had risen in
his face. He felt in her presence a fine exhilaration denied him through
all the years without her. Who could say whether it was the woman
herself or the resurrected spirit of their youth? He did not feel like
answering her. It was enough to hear her voice. He leaned forward,
looking at her with something piteous in his air.

"Mary Ellen," he ventured, "you might as well say 'another mistake.' I
did make one. You know it, and I know it."

She looked at him with a frank affection, entirely maternal. "Yes,
William," she said, with the same gentle firmness in her voice, "we've
passed so far beyond those things that we can speak out and feel no
shame. You did make a mistake. I don't know as 't would be called so to
break with me, but it was to marry where you did. You never cared about
her. You were good to her.