about her trip, and Uncle Ephraim remarked that she would not find Morris home, as he was going that afternoon to Spencer. This last settled it. Katy must stay at home; but instead of lying down or talking much about her journey, she explored every nook and crevice of the old house and barn, finding the nest Aunt Betsy had so long looked for in vain, and proving to the anxious dame that she was right when she insisted that the speckled hen had stolen her nest and was in the act of setting. Later in the day, and a neighbor passing by spied the little maiden riding in the cart off into the meadow, where she sported like a child among the mounds of fragrant hay, playing her jokes upon the sober deacon, who smiled fondly upon her, feeling how much lighter the labor seemed because she was there with him, a hindrance instead of a help, in spite of her efforts to handle the rake skillfully.
"Are you glad to have me home again, Uncle Eph?" she asked, when once she caught him regarding her with a peculiar look.
"Yes, Katy-did, very glad," he answered. "I've missed you every day, though you do nothing much but bother me."
"Why did you look funny at me just now?" Katy continued, and the deacon replied: "I was thinking how hard it would be for such a highty-tighty thing as you to meet the crosses and disappointments which lie all along the road which you must travel. I should hate to see your young life crushed out of you, as young lives sometimes are."
"Oh, never fear for me. I am going to be happy all my life long. Wilford Cameron said I ought to be," and Katy tossed into the air a wisp of the new-made hay.
"I don't know who Wilford Cameron is, but there's no ought about it," the deacon rejoined. "God marks out the path for us to walk in, and when he says it's best, we know it is, though some are straight and pleasant and others crooked and hard."
"I'll choose the straight and pleasant, then—why shouldn't I?" Kate asked, laughingly, as she seated herself upon a rock near which the hay cart had stopped.
"Can't tell what path you'll take," the deacon answered. "God knows whether you'll go easy through the world, or whether he'll send you suffering to purify and make you better."
"Purified by suffering," Kate said aloud, while a shadow involuntarily crept for an instant over her gay spirits.
She could not believe she was to be purified by suffering. She had never done anything very bad, and humming a part of a song learned from Wilford Cameron, she followed after the loaded cart, returning slowly to the house, thinking to herself that there must be something great and good in the suffering which should purify at last, but hoping she was not the one to whom this great good should come.
It was supper time ere long, and after that was over Kate announced her intention of going now to Linwood, Morris' home, whether he were there or not.
"I can see the housekeeper and the birds and flowers, and maybe he will come pretty soon," she said, as she swung her straw hat by the string and started from the door.
"Ain't Helen going with you?" Aunt Hannah asked, while Helen herself looked a little surprised.
But Katy would rather go alone. She had a heap to tell Cousin Morris, and Helen could go next time.
"Just as you like;" Helen answered, good-naturedly; but there was a half-dissatisfied, wistful look on her face as she watched her young sister tripping across the fields to call on Morris Grant.
CHAPTER II.
LINWOOD.
Morris had returned from Spencer, and in his dressing-gown and slippers was sitting by the window of his cheerful library, looking out upon the purple sunshine flooding the western sky, and thinking of the little girl coming so rapidly up the grassy lane in the rear of the house. He was going over to see her by and by, he said, and he pictured to himself how she must look by this time, hoping that he should not find her greatly changed, for Morris Grant's memories were very precious of the playful child who, in that very room where he was sitting, used to tease and worry him so much with her lessons poorly learned, and the never-ending jokes played off upon her teacher. He had thought of her so often when across the sea, and, knowing her love of the beautiful, he had never looked upon a painting or scene of rare beauty that he did not wish her by his side sharing in the pleasure. He had brought her from that far-off land many little trophies which he thought she would prize, and which he was going to take with him when he went to the farmhouse. He never dreamed of her coming there to-night. She would, of course, wait for him. Helen had, even when it was more her place to call upon him first. How, then, was he amazed when, just as the sun was going down and he was watching its last rays lingering on the brow of the hill across the pond, the library door was opened wide and the room seemed suddenly filled with life and joy, as a graceful figure, with reddish, golden hair, bounded across the floor, and winding its arms around his neck gave him the hearty kiss which Katy had in her mind when she declined Aunt Betsy's favorite vegetable.
Morris Grant was not averse to being kissed, and yet the fact that Katy Lennox had kissed him in such a way awoke a chill of disappointment, for it said that to her he was the teacher still, the elder brother, whom, as a child, she had in her pretty way loaded with caresses.
"Oh, Cousin Morris!" she exclaimed, and, still holding his hand: "Why didn't you come over at noon, you naughty, naughty boy? But what a splendid-looking man you've got to be, though! and what do you think of me?" she added, blushing for the first time, as he held her off from him and looked into the sunny face.
"I think you wholly unchanged," he answered, so gravely that Katy began to pout as she said: "And you are sorry, I know. Pray, what did you expect of me, and what would you have me be?"
"Nothing but what you are—the same Kitty as of old," he answered, his own bright smile breaking all over his sober face.
He saw that his manner repelled her, and he tried to be natural, succeeding so well that Katy forgot her first disappointment, and making him sit by her on the sofa, where she could see him distinctly, she poured forth a volley of talk, telling him, among other things, how much afraid of him some of his letters made her—they were so serious and so like a sermon.
"You wrote me once that you thought of being a minister," she added. "Why did you change your mind? It must be splendid, I think, to be a young clergyman—invited to so many tea-drinkings, and having all the girls in the parish after you, as they always are after unmarried ministers."
Into Morris Grant's eyes there stole a troubled light as he thought how little Katy realized what it was to be a minister of God—to point the people heavenward and teach them the right way. There was a moment's pause, and then he tried to explain to her that he hoped he had not been influenced either by thought of tea-drinking or having the parish girls after him, but rather by an honest desire to choose the sphere in which he could accomplish the most good.
"I did not decide rashly," he said, "but after weeks of anxious thought and prayer for guidance I came to the conclusion that in the practice of medicine I could find perhaps as broad a field for good as in the church, and so I decided to go on with my profession—to be a physician of the poor and suffering, speaking to them of Him who came to save, and in this way I shall not labor in vain. Many would seek another place than Silverton and its vicinity, but something told me that my work was here, and so I am content to stay, feeling
