e me
time."

Reuben smiled.

"You've's good's asked me a good while back, Elder; an' I take it you
haint ever had much doubt what my answer'd be." Then, as Draxy knelt down
by his chair and laid her head on his shoulder, he added more solemnly,--

"But I'd jest like once to say to ye, Elder, that if ever I get to heaven,
I wouldn't ask anythin' more o' the Lord than to let me see Draxy 'n' you
a comin' in together, an' lookin' as you looked jest now when ye come in't
that gate!"

The Elder's Wife.

Sequel to "Draxy Miller's Dowry."

Part I.

Draxy and the Elder were married in the little village church, on the
first Sunday in September.

"O Draxy! let it be on a communion Sunday," the Elder had said, with an
expression on his face which Draxy could not quite fathom; "I can't tell
you what it 'ud be to me to promise myself over again to the blessed
Saviour, the same hour I promise to you, darling, I'm so afraid of loving
Him less. I don't see how I can remember anything about heaven, after I've
got you, Draxy," and tears stood in the Elder's eyes.

Draxy looked at him wonderingly and with a little pain in her face. To her
serene nature, heaven and earth, this life and all the others which may
follow it, had so long seemed one--love and happiness and duty had become
so blended in one sweet atmosphere of living in daily nearness to God,
that she could not comprehend the Elder's words.

"Why, Mr. Kinney, it's all Christ," she said, slowly and hesitatingly,
slipping her hand into his, and looking up at him so lovingly that his
face flushed, and he threw his arms around her, and only felt a thousand
times more that heaven had come to mean but one thing to him.

"Darling," he whispered, "would you feel so if I were to die and leave you
alone?"

"Yes, I think so," said Draxy, still more slowly, and turning very pale.
"You never can really leave me, and no human being can be really alone; it
would still be all Christ, and it would be living His life and God's
still;" but tears rolled down her cheeks, and she began to sob.

"Oh, forgive me, Draxy," exclaimed the Elder, wrung to the heart by the
sight of her grief. "I'm nothing but a great brute to say that to you just
now; but, Draxy, you don't know much about a man's heart yet; you're such
a saint yourself, you can't understand how it makes a man feel as if this
earth was enough, and he didn't want any heaven, when he loves a woman as
I love you," an