it,"
the deacon rejoined. "God marks out the path for us to walk in, and when
he says it's best, we know it is, though some are straight and pleasant
and others crooked and hard."

"I'll choose the straight and pleasant, then--why shouldn't I?" Kate
asked, laughingly, as she seated herself upon a rock near which the hay
cart had stopped.

"Can't tell what path you'll take," the deacon answered. "God knows
whether you'll go easy through the world, or whether he'll send you
suffering to purify and make you better."

"Purified by suffering," Kate said aloud, while a shadow involuntarily
crept for an instant over her gay spirits.

She could not believe she was to be purified by suffering. She had never
done anything very bad, and humming a part of a song learned from
Wilford Cameron, she followed after the loaded cart, returning slowly to
the house, thinking to herself that there must be something great and
good in the suffering which should purify at last, but hoping she was
not the one to whom this great good should come.

It was supper time ere long, and after that was over Kate announced her
intention of going now to Linwood, Morris' home, whether he were there
or not.

"I can see the housekeeper and the birds and flowers, and maybe he will
come pretty soon," she said, as she swung her straw hat by the string
and started from the door.

"Ain't Helen going with you?" Aunt Hannah asked, while Helen herself
looked a little surprised.

But Katy would rather go alone. She had a heap to tell Cousin Morris,
and Helen could go next time.

"Just as you like;" Helen answered, good-naturedly; but there was a
half-dissatisfied, wistful look on her face as she watched her young
sister tripping across the fields to call on Morris Grant.

CHAPTER II.

LINWOOD.

Morris had returned from Spencer, and in his dressing-gown and slippers
was sitting by the window of his cheerful library, looking out upon the
purple sunshine flooding the western sky, and thinking of the little
girl coming so rapidly up the grassy lane in the rear of the house. He
was going over to see her by and by, he said, and he pictured to himself
how she must look by this time, hoping that he should not find her
greatly changed, for Morris Grant's memories were very precious of the
playful child who, in that very room where he was sitting, used to tease
and worry him so much with her lessons poorly learned, and the
never-ending jokes played off