d like heralds of summer
on their northward journey. We had three hired men to help us, in addition
to the teams driven by myself and Harry; but, and this was his own fancy,
it was Aline who commenced the work.

"You will remember our hopes and fears the day we first put in the share.
Many things have happened since," he said, "but once more the harvest
means a great deal to both of us. Miss Lorimer--and we are now more
fortunate, Ralph, than we were then--you will imagine yourself an ancient
priestess, and bless the soil for us. That always struck me as an
appropriate custom."

The wind had freshened the roses in Aline's cheeks, and her eyes sparkled
as she patted the brawny oxen. Then she grasped the plough-stilts, and,
calling to the beasts, Harry strode beside her, with his brown hand laid
close beside her white one. Theirs was the better furrow, for, tramping
behind my own team not far away, I could hardly keep my eyes off the pair.
Both had grown very dear to me, and they were worth the watching--the
handsome strong man, and the eager bright-faced girl, whose merry laugh
mingled with the soft sound of clods parting beneath the share. They
stopped at the end of the furrow, and I wondered when Aline said with
strange gentleness: "God bless the good soil, and give the seed increase,
that we may use the same for Thy glory, the relief of those that are
needy, and our own comfort."

"Amen!" said Harry, bending his uncovered head, as, a sinewy, graceful
figure in dusty canvas, with the white sod behind him, he helped her
across a raw strip of steaming clod, while neither of us spoke again until
we had completed another furrow. It was a glorious spring, and not for
long years had there been such a seed time, the men who helped us said,
while my hopes rose with every fresh acre we drilled with the good grain.
I was sowing the best that was within me as well as the best hard wheat,
and it seemed that the rest of my life depended on the result of it. There
is no need to tell how we labored among the black clods of the breaking,
or the dust that followed the harrows, under the cool of morning or the
mid-day sun, for we were young and strong, fighting for our own hand, with
a great reward before at least one of us. Still, at times I remembered
Lee, who was in his own way fighting a harder battle against drunkenness
and misery, the reward of which was only hardship and poverty. Once I said
so to Aline, and she answered me: "I