and the hills
swelled near in dusky evergreen, and indigo shadows, and lessened far
down toward Winnipiseogee, to where, faint and tender and blue, the
outline of little Ossipee peeped in between great shoulders so
modestly,--seen only through the clearest air on days like this.
Leslie's little table, with fresh white cover, held a vase of ferns and
white convolvulus, and beside this Cousin Delight's two books that came
out always from the top of her trunk,--her Bible and her little "Daily
Food." To-day the verses from Old and New Testaments were these: "The
steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delighteth in his
way." "Walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the
time."

They had a talk about the first,--"The steps," the little details; not
merely the general trend and final issue; if, indeed, these could be
directed without the other.

"You always make me see things, Cousin Delight," Leslie said.

"It is very plain," Delight answered; "if people only would read the
Bible as they read even a careless letter from a friend, counting each
word of value, and searching for more meaning and fresh inference to
draw out the most. One word often answers great doubts and askings that
have troubled the world."

Afterward, they walked round by a still wood-path under the Ledge to the
North Village, where there was a service. It was a plain little church,
with unpainted pews; but the windows looked forth upon a green mountain
side, and whispers of oaks and pines and river-music crept in, and the
breath of sweet water-lilies, heaped in a great bowl upon the communion
table of common stained cherrywood, floated up and filled the place. The
minister, a quiet, gray-haired man, stayed his foot an instant at that
simple altar, before he went up the few steps to the desk. He had a
sermon in his pocket from the text, "The hairs of your heads are all
numbered." He changed it at the moment in his mind, and, when presently
he rose to preach, gave forth in a tone touched, through the very
presence of that reminding beauty, with the very spontaneousness of the
Master's own saying, "Consider the lilies." And then he told them of
God's momently thought and care.

There were scattered strangers, from various houses, among the simple
rural congregation. Walking home through the pines again, Delight and
Leslie and Dakie Thayne found themselves preceded and followed along the
narrow way. Sin Saxon and Frank Scherm