y and Mrs. Freeze and Mrs. Dow, who were always hovering
about Nelly, often whispered to me their hope that she would
eventually come into our church and not "go with the Methodists";
her family were Wesleyans. But to me these artless plans of theirs
never wholly explained their watchful affection. They had good
daughters themselves,--except Mrs. Spinny, who had only the sullen
Scott,--and they loved their plain girls and thanked God for them.
But they loved Nelly differently. They were proud of her pretty
figure and yellow-brown eyes, which dilated so easily and sparkled
with a kind of golden effervescence. They were always making pretty
things for her, always coaxing her to come to the sewing-circle,
where she knotted her thread, and put in the wrong sleeve, and
laughed and chattered and said a great many things that she should
not have said, and somehow always warmed their hearts. I think they
loved her for her unquenchable joy.

All the Baptist ladies liked Nell, even those who criticized her
most severely, but the three who were first in fighting the battles
of our little church, who held it together by their prayers and the
labor of their hands, watched over her as they did over Mrs. Dow's
century-plant before it blossomed. They looked for her on Sunday
morning and smiled at her as she hurried, always a little late, up
to the choir. When she rose and stood behind the organ and sang
"There Is a Green Hill," one could see Mrs. Dow and Mrs. Freeze
settle back in their accustomed seats and look up at her as if she
had just come from that hill and had brought them glad tidings.

It was because I sang contralto, or, as we said, alto, in the
Baptist choir that Nell and I became friends. She was so gay and
grown up, so busy with parties and dances and picnics, that I would
scarcely have seen much of her had we not sung together. She liked
me better than she did any of the older girls, who tried clumsily to
be like her, and I felt almost as solicitous and admiring as did
Mrs. Dow and Mrs. Spinny. I think even then I must have loved to see
her bloom and glow, and I loved to hear her sing, in "The Ninety and
Nine,"

But one was out on the hills away

in her sweet, strong voice. Nell had never had a singing lesson, but
she had sung from the time she could talk, and Mrs. Dow used fondly
to say that it was singing so much that made her figure so pretty.

After I went into the choir it was found to be easier to get Nelly