gs, and
roasted chickens, for them to take for food on the journey. Father's way
was to carry his own provisions, and stay at night with friends and
relations along the road; even if the sleighing was good, and nothing
happened, he would be a week or more in going to Boston. So, of course,
the supply must be pretty generous.

"It was a still, bright morning when they set off, with a sky so clear
that father thought there would be no storm for many days. After the
excitement of their starting passed away, it seemed very quiet and
lonesome; for you remember, though I have not said anything about it,
that my heart was aching for its lost love.

"I had said nothing about it to mother yet, but after they were gone,
and the chores done up for the night, and the boys playing with their
cob-houses in the corner, she sat down beside me, saying, 'Now, Mercy,
tell me all about the trouble between you and Ephraim.' As well as I
could for crying, I told her, feeling very much ashamed when I came to
the part about Elihu. But mother was very gentle, and only said, 'I
fear, my child, that savors of an unregenerate heart.'

"That was true. But while I had been sick I had thought very seriously,
and I was thankful I had not been taken away while my heart was in such
a state. I did not dare to tell mother how God's goodness had shone down
upon me while I lay ill in my bed, but I hoped and prayed that it would
not leave me.

"It was a relief as well as pain to see that mother blamed Ephraim. She
said he should not have allowed himself to be deceived and influenced by
Prudence. I told her I was sure he could not have loved me as he ought,
and that I thought I would send back to him the little presents he had
made me, and say that I did not hold him to his promise.

"Mother agreed with me, and the next day I made up the package. There
was a string of gold beads, and a pair of silver shoe-buckles, and a
Chinese fan, and a hymn-book, the bunch of witch-hazel blossoms he
picked for me that day in the woods, and, more precious than all the
rest, a letter, six foolscap pages in length, that he had written in the
fall, while I was visiting my cousin in Keene.

"I could not help crying-while I was putting them up, and I took out the
letter twice, thinking I might keep that. But mother said, if we were
indeed to be separated, it was my duty to forget my love for Ephraim,
else it would darken all my life; and life, she said, was given us for
c