in a plantation, and I stopped and asked him how he
was. "Ah, miss," he said, "verra weel, verra weel. And yet it was nobbut
Friday morning lasst, I cam oop here, awfu' bad in my sperrits like. For
my wife she's sick an a' dwinnelt away, and I'm gettin' auld, and can't
wark as I'd used to, and it did luke to me as thoo there was naethin'
afore us nobbut t' Union. And t' mist war low on t' fells, and I sat
oonder t' wall, wettish and broodin' like. And theer--all ov a soodent
the Lord found me! Yes, puir Reuben Judge, as dawn't matter to naebody,
the Lord found un. It war leyke as thoo His feeace cam a glisterin' an'
a shinin' through t' mist. An' iver sense then, miss, aa've jest felt
as thoo aa could a' cut an' stackt all t' wood on t' fell in naw time
at a'!" And he waved his hand round the mountain side which was covered
with plantation. And all the way along the path for ever so long I could
hear him singing, chopping away, and quavering out "Rock of Ages."'

'She paused; her delicate face, with just a little quiver in the lip,
turned to her aunt, her eyes glowing as though a hidden fire had leapt
suddenly outward. And yet the gesture, the attitude, was simplicity
and unconsciousness itself. Robert had never heard her say anything so
intimate before. Nor had he ever seen her so inspired, so beautiful. She
had transmuted the conversation at a touch. It had been barbarous prose;
she had turned it into purest poetry. Only the noblest souls have such
an alchemy as this at command, thought the watcher on the other side, of
the room, with a passionate reverence.

'I wasn't thinkin' of narrowin' the Lord down to ministers; said Mrs.
Fleming, with a certain loftiness. 'We all know He can do without us
puir worms.'

Then, seeing that no one replied, the good woman got up to go. Much
of her apparel had slipped away from her in the fervors of revivalist
anecdote, and while she hunted for gloves and reticule--officiously
helped by the younger girls--Robert crossed over to Catherine.

'You lifted us on to your own high places!' he said, bending down to
her; 'I shall carry your story with me through the fells.'

She looked up, and as she met his warm, moved look a little glow and
tremor crept into the face, destroying its exalted expression. He broke
the spell; she sank from the poet into the embarrassed woman.

'You must see my old man,' she said, with an effort; 'he is worth a
library of sermons. I must introduce him to yo