he one her
grandchildren liked best to hear was

THE STORY OF PARSON LORRIMER'S WHITE HORSE.

"Parson Lorrimer had lived thirty years in Hilltown before he owned a
horse. He began to preach in the big white meeting-house when he was a
young man, and, as neither he nor his people wanted a change, when he
was sixty years old he was preaching there still. It was a scattered
parish, with farm-houses perched on the hill-sides and nestled in the
valleys; and the minister, in doing his work, had trudged over every
mile of it a great many times. He made nothing of walking five miles to
a meeting on a December evening, with the thermometer below zero, or of
climbing the hills in a driving snow-storm to visit a sick parishioner.
He was a tall, spare man, healthy and vigorous, with iron-gray hair, a
strong kind face, and a smile in his brown eyes that made every baby in
Hilltown stretch out its arms to him to be taken.

"Not a chick or child had Parson Lorrimer of his own. He had never
married, but lived in the old parsonage, a stately mansion, with rooms
enough in it to accommodate a big family, with only an elderly widow and
her grown-up son to minister to his wants and to keep him company. His
study was at the back of the house, and looked out upon the garden and
orchard, so that the smell of his pinks and roses came to him as he
wrote, and the same robins, year by year, built their nests within reach
of his hand in the branches of the crooked old apple-tree that shaded
his window.

"The minister was fond of caring for living creatures, both small and
great, and every domestic animal about the place knew it. The cat
jumped fearlessly to his knee, sure of a welcome. The cow lowed after
him if he showed himself at the window. The little chicks fluttered to
his shoulder when he appeared in the door-yard, and the old sow with her
litter of pigs kept close at his heels as he paced the orchard,
pondering next Sunday's sermon.

"He remembered them all. There was always a handful of grain for the
chickens in the pocket of his study-gown, a ripe pumpkin in the shed for
Sukey; and the good man would laugh like a school-boy, as the funny
little baby-pigs rolled and tumbled over each other for the apples he
tossed them. A great, good, gentle man, learned and wise in theology and
knowledge of the Scriptures, with tastes and habits as simple as a
child.

"But I must hurry on with my story, or you will think I am telling you
more ab