write more than assurances of health and good hopes for
the future. Only once since had news reached them from that quarter. A
disabled man from the Nepash company was brought home dying with
consumption. Hannah felt almost ashamed to rejoice in the tidings he
brought of John's welfare, when she heard his husky voice, saw his
worn and ghastly countenance, and watched the suppressed agony in his
wife's eyes. The words of thankfulness she wanted to speak would have
been so many stabs in that woman's breast. It was only when her eight
children rejoiced in the hearing that she dared to be happy. But the
other news was from Sylvia. She was promised to the schoolmaster in
Litchfield. Only to think of it! Our Sylvy!

Master Loomis had been eager to go to the war; but his mother was a
poor bedrid woman, dependent on him for support, and all the
dignitaries of the town combined in advising and urging him to stay at
home for the sake of their children, as well as his mother. So at home
he stayed, and fell into peril of heart, instead of life and limb,
under the soft fire of Sylvia's eyes, instead of the enemy's
artillery. Parson Everett could not refuse his consent, though he and
madam were both loth to give up their sweet daughter. But since she
and the youth seemed to be both of one mind about the matter, and he
being a godly young man, of decent parentage, and in a good way of
earning his living, there was no more to be said. They would wait a
year before thinking of marriage, both for better acquaintance and on
account of the troubled times.

"Mayhap the times will mend, sir," anxiously suggested the
schoolmaster to Parson Everett.

"I think not, I think not, Master Loomis. There is a great blackness
of darkness in hand, the Philistines be upon us, and there is moving
to and fro. Yea, Behemoth lifteth himself and shaketh his mane--h-m!
ah! h-m! It is not a time for marrying and giving in marriage, for
playing on sackbuts and dulcimers--h-m!"

A quiet smile flickered around Master Loomis's mouth as he turned
away, solaced by a shy, sweet look from Sylvia's limpid eyes, as he
peeped into the keeping-room, where she sat with madam, on his way
out. He could afford to wait a year for such a spring blossom as that,
surely. And wait he did, with commendable patience, comforting his
godly soul with the fact that Sylvia was spared meantime the daily
tendance and care of a fretful old woman like his mother; for, though
Master Loom