Year: 1860

what devices and patterns he liked; every word


that he uttered brought some new vision before


his hearer--opened some window 10 the east


ward Of her life, Nothing was too small OF


trivial for his notice, from the robbins nest in


the great pear tree, TO the swing in the garret
and the ears of small corn which they brought
down from the bushel basket under the rafters
in the garret, every winter.


And Mrs. Denison drank in every word. and


her face kindled, and quick laughs rang out Of


her lips, almost as sweet as the birds songs
did out Of the lilac trees outside, and were
caught and lostinthe current of another laugh,
stronger and deeper


Oh, she was pretty, pretty creature, sit
ting there with her blue eyes so full Of light,
her fair, round cheeks kindled into quick
ilushes, and her glossy, golden curls flickering
like lights about her face


May Darling had been the only daughter Of
o clergyman, who had been for more than
thirty years installed over the South Church
in the quiet old country town of Winstead


The daisies grew over her mothers grave
before she could remember herr and about
the large grave clustered company of small
ones telling the number of her brothers aud
sisters who were angels in heaven MAY was
the light of her fathers eyes She was a gen
erous, impulsve, fascinating little creature,
and her lie was much like the robins, which
made their nests every May in the branches of
the pear tree that grew close to the kitchen
door


She had just touched her eighth year when
Ralph Upham came to the parsonage He
was three years her senior, one of those off
hand, sparkling, fun-loving boys that are sure
to be favorites with everybody.


lie was the son Of the minister's oldest sis
ters first husband, and he was left quite alone
in the world when his parents and his step
mother were called away from it.


SO the kind-hearted clergyman received
him into his own family and he became ns a
son to him, and as brother to his child


But Ralph caused his foster-father many
hours of anxiety and pain, for, despite all his
bright, merry ways, the minister could not
fail to discern the lack of truth and fixed prin-
cple which the boy so frequently indicated,
and without which there is no foundation to
build up character either permanently good
or beautiful and as the boy and girl grew up
to man and womanhood the old pastor watch
ed with vague regret their growing attachment
to each other


He resolved to send Ralph to college but he
passed all his vacations Mt the parsonage, and,
on his entering on his junior year, May, was
DelIOlntu W tOuhlH WIN idtlltI y COIl-
sent


She had blossomed, in that quaint old par
into rarely beautiful girl-woman,
and she gave to Ralph Upham all the sweet
flowing fountains of her woman's faith and
tenderness.


But terrible blow was appointed her, for
though Ralph Upham graduated at college |
with the highest honors of his class, his con
duct during the first year of his professional
studies, made the clergyman withdraw his
consent to his daughters engagement


May yielded to her father will but her obe-
iience cost her long and severe illness, from
which she had scarcely recoved before her IA
thef was gathered TO his wife and his children.
May went to reside with an aunt of
her mothers in the city, and il was not strange
that her loveliness won her many admirers.


Her aunt was, however,a judicious and chris
tian woman, and sofened and nourished by
the rains which had fallen into her life,
the character of May Darling blossomed into
new strength and beauty, and the man who
at last won her affections was one to whom
her father and mother ia heaven would have
'ejoiced to commit the earthly welfare of their
child.