ly; she had a warm heart,
hidden away somewhere under her moody exterior, and her father had
shown her far more passive kindness than ever her mother had done, for
Grace made distinct favourites of Manasseh, her only son, and Prudence,
her youngest child. Lois was about as unhappy as any of them, for she
had felt strongly drawn towards her uncle as her kindest friend, and
the sense of his loss renewed the old sorrow she had experienced at her
own parents' death. But she had no time and no place to cry in. On her
devolved many of the cares, which it would have seemed indecorous in
the nearer relatives to interest themselves in enough to take an active
part: the change required in their dress, the household preparations
for the sad feast of the funeral--Lois had to arrange all under her
aunt's stern direction.

But a day or two afterwards--the last day before the funeral--she went
into the yard to fetch in some fagots for the oven; it was a solemn,
beautiful, starlit evening, and some sudden sense of desolation in the
midst of the vast universe thus revealed touched Lois's heart, and she
sat down behind the woodstack, and cried very plentiful tears.

She was startled by Manasseh, who suddenly turned the corner of the
stack, and stood before her.

'Lois crying!'

'Only a little,' she said, rising up, and gathering her bundle of
fagots, for she dreaded being questioned by her grim, impassive cousin.
To her surprise, he laid his hand on her arm, and said:

'Stop one minute. Why art thou crying, cousin?'

'I don't know,' she said, just like a child questioned in like manner;
and she was again on the point of weeping.

'My father was very kind to thee, Lois; I do not wonder that thou
grievest after him. But the Lord who taketh away can restore tenfold. I
will be as kind as my father--yea, kinder. This is not a time to talk
of marriage and giving in marriage. But after we have buried our dead,
I wish to speak to thee.'

Lois did not cry now, but she shrank with affright. What did her cousin
mean? She would far rather that he had been angry with her for
unreasonable grieving, for folly.

She avoided him carefully--as carefully as she could, without seeming
to dread him--for the next few days. Sometimes she thought it must have
been a bad dream; for if there had been no English lover in the case,
no other man in the whole world, she could never have thought of
Manasseh as her husband; indeed, till now, there had been n