a very early age, leaving a dreary blank in the
household, which his joyous spirit had filled with sunshine.

It is not strange that under such circumstances the lonely widower
should think of a successor to his lost wife, for Mittie needed a
mother's restraining influence and guardian care. Nor is it strange,
with her indomitable self-will, she should resist the authority of a
stranger. When her father announced his intention of bringing home a
lady to preside over his establishment, claiming for her all filial
respect and obedience, she flew into a violent passion, and declared she
would never own her as a mother, never address her as such--that she
would leave home and never return, before she would submit to the
government of a stranger. Unwilling to expose the woman who had
consented to be his wife to scenes of strife and unhappiness, Mr.
Gleason, as the only alternative, resolved to send his daughter to a
boarding-school, before his mansion received its new mistress. Mittie
exulted in this arrangement, for a boarding-school was the Ultima Thule
of her ambition, and she boasted to her classmates that her father was
afraid of her, and that he dared not marry while she was at home.
Amiable boast of a child!--especially a daughter.

Mr. Gleason was anxious to recall Helen, and place her at once under her
new mother's guardianship, but Mrs. Hazleton pleaded, and the blind
Alice pleaded with the mute eloquence of her sightless eyes, and the
young doctor pleaded; and Helen, after being summoned to welcome her new
parent, and share in the wedding festivities, was permitted to return to
her beloved Parsonage.

It was a beautiful spot--so rural, so retired, so far from the public
road, so removed from noise and dust. It had such a serene, religious
aspect, the traveler looking up the long avenue of trees, with a
gradually ascending glance, to the unambitious, gray-walled mansion,
situated at its termination, thought it must be one of the sweetest
havens of rest that God ever provided for life's weary pilgrim.

And so it was--and so Helen thought, when wandering with the blind Alice
through the sequestered fields and wild groves surrounding the dwelling,
or seated within the low, neat, white-washed walls, and listening to the
mild, maternal accents of Arthur Hazleton's mother.

It was a mild summer evening. The windows were all open, and the smell
of the roses that peeped in through the casements, made sweeter as well
a