ent her wrinkled kindly face close to his cheeks; but Hugh believed
it was to hide the rush of sacred emotions that swept over her.

Then they talked.

By degrees Hugh got his host started on the subject that was nearest
his heart, and which had to do with the wonderful habits of all the
small, wild animals of which the deacon had made a life-long study.

"It's a wonderfully fascinating subject, Hugh," the old blacksmith
philanthropist went on to say, as he started in. "I took it up just
as a fancy, but as the years went by it became a habit that grew on
me more and more. Yes, I have had an amazing lot of pleasure out of
my observations. As the good wife here will tell you, I've spent
hours on hours at night, hidden in the woods, with a light fixed on
some nest of a muskrat or gopher or fox, just to learn what the
cunning little varmint did betimes; when of rights I should have been
in my bed getting rested for another hard day's labor at my forge."

"His holidays have always been taken up in the same way," interrupted
Mrs. Winslow, smiling lovingly at her husband, whose heart she
evidently could read as though it were a printed book. "At first I
begrudged him the time, but later on I knew it was taking his
thoughts away from subjects that we were trying to keep out of our
minds, and I never tried to hold him back."

"It was my study of the habits of these small animals and birds that
gave me what little faculty I may possess for prophesying the weather
ahead," continued the old man. "They seldom, if ever, go wrong. If
I've hit it wrong now and then, the fault was mine, not theirs. I
had failed to properly interpret their actions, that was all."

So he went on to tell Hugh many deeply interesting experiments he had
undertaken along those lines. He also had a fund of wonderful
anecdotes, many of them quite humorous, connected with his little
friends of fur and feather.

The more Hugh heard him tell the greater grew his interest. He
resolved that at some time in the not distant future, when an
opportunity came along, he, too, would begin to pay more attention to
the multitude of interesting things that could be discovered in
almost any woods, if only the observer kept his eyes about him, and
did nothing to alarm the timid inmates of various burrows and hollow
trees.

So an hour passed, all too quickly.

Once Hugh took out his little nickel watch, as if under the
impression that it must be getting near