nrest
Broke the pleasant dream she dreamed.
Only made to be her nest
All that lovely valley seemed,
No desire of soaring higher
Stirred or flattered in her breast."

Even had she desired to move, the presence of Mrs. McAravey would have
rendered it impossible. Though much softened and improved, the old
woman had scarcely become an agreeable companion. The hard,
Covenanting leaven had moulded her from childhood, and though of late
years she had been touched by a gentler spirit, it was impossible that
habits of a lifetime should be entirely eradicated. She suffered much
pain, borne for the most part uncomplainingly, and was now nearly
helpless. Elsie was not the sort of person to think herself a martyr.
Indeed, it never occurred to her that, in thus watching and consoling
the declining years of this poor, decrepid old body, she was even
performing a noble, and at times fatiguing and painful, duty. She took
it all as a matter of course. It came to her in the order of
Providence, and formed an element and feature in the state of life to
which it had pleased God to call her, and in which she had resolved by
the Divine blessing to do her duty.

Thus matters might long have held their quiet course had it not been
for Jim. As it has been said, he was very different in disposition
from Elsie. Restless, eager, and full of curiosity, he could not
understand her placid yet cheerful nature. He knew not the secret of
her inner life, and of the way in which that life animated and directed
the outer. The young man saw less and less of Tor Glen, having now
obtained a good situation in a flax store at Ballymena.

Some little time previous Elsie and Jim had both been confirmed; and
since that event the Rev. Cooper Smith and George Hendrick had had
several consultations with regard to them. They were very unwilling to
disturb the minds of the young people, nor had they anything definite
to impart; yet it did not seem right to keep them in ignorance of what
was known or suspected as to their parentage. Jim, moreover, had
displayed a good deal of curiosity on the subject, and had questioned
Hendrick as to the meaning of the reports that had come to his ever
open ears about old McAravey's knowledge of the drowned woman.

At length it was resolved that Elsie and Jim should be invited to the
rectory on a Saturday afternoon, and the whole matter fully explained.
All being assembled on the day named, the rector b