Year: 1876

made him an offer to tarry all winter. sc
Justin stayed, taking Lucy's advice, and
went to the district school and, though
he had no education before, he went
ahead of many an older scholar that win
ter. Justin stayed with the farmer foni
years then he had good offer some
where in New York State, and conclud
ed to stop for the winter only.


"Lucy Reid had grown into a young
woman by this time /; and handsomeI
one, children, these dim eyes never
looked upon. don't know how it hap
pened, for Lucy might have had hel
pick among the boys for miles around,
but somehow she took to Justin, and
when he left, they were engaged to be
married one year from that time"


"Why, Grandma Deane you amt
going to stop now9" cried Cora in alarm,
for the old lady had laid down her knit
ting.


"No, my child" she said, moving her
spectacles and wiping her eyes "but
the rest is sad story, and must hurry
over it. l don't exactly know how ii
happened, but that winter Lucy's father
got into terrible lawsuit with Squire
Wheeler. There was some flaw in the
title, and the people said it was plain
the old man should let the homestead
go. They said, too, he IL never survive it;
and better perhaps, he never had, than
kept it as he did but one day Squire
Wheeler, to all the neighborhood's as
tonishment, rode over to the farm.


"What he did there was never exactly
known but in little while it was
rumored that the suit was withdrawn,
and next spring Lucy Reid was to be
married to his son, Stillman Wheeler.
And so it was. One bright March day
she went to the old church yonder and
gave herself to him. He was q good
looking man, but never over-smart, the
neighbors whispered; and 1 always
thought that it was his fathers money,
more than anything else, that kept him
up"


"But Justin, Grandma Deane-what
became of himl"


"There is q dark look about the whole
matter. Lucy was made the victim of
some terrible falsehood. Inever blamed
her father, for the losing of the home
stead seemed completely to shatter him.
1 only know that Squire Wheeler and
his son were at the bottom of it, and
that Lucy Reid went to the altar, be-
ieving that Justin had been false to
her."


"Dear me, how dreadful Did he
ever come back2"


eyes, the next May. Lucy had been
wife two months. Justin had not
heard of her marriage. She was at
home visiting her father. When she
first saw him she fell down like one
stricken with fit. But he carried her
into the house and there learned all.
Both had been deceived"


cit was terrible scene the old front
room witnessed. Justin swore ven-
geance, and it was not till, with clasped
hands and streaming eyes the young
wife knelt to the only man she ever
loved and pleaded for the life of her hus-
band, that he promised for her sake to
spare his life. But from the day of
Justin's visit Lucy was changed
woman. All the light and gladness of
her being seemed dead in her. She
moved about her house pale and quiet,
with look of patient suffering in her
once sunny eyes that made my heart
ache to behold"


"And her husband-did she ever tell
him what she had learned2"


CT think not. His father and Lucy's
had died in less than two years after the
marriage. The Squire was much less
wealthy than was supposed. The next
spring Lucy and her husband moved
West, and somehow people lost sight of
them"


"And Justin 2"


"You know the rest, my child. He
became a moody, unhappy man, asking
no sympathy and giving none. But he
was always smart at bargain and in a
few years he laid up enough money to
buy Deacon Platt's farm when his son
went South. Ever since, he has added
acres to his lands and hundreds to the
banks but for all that, he is a man
soured toward all his race--a man who
was never known to give little child
a smile or beggar a crust of bread.
have sometimes thought his heart was
like desert, without tree to shade OF
a stream to gladden. it. And yet it bore
q bright blossom once and believe me,
children, for it is the word of an old wo-
man who has seen and known much OF
the ways of man, it is always so. The
heart may be great wilderness, but in
some of its by-ways there has grown 0
flower"


Cora and / looked at each other and al
Uncle Charlie. Just then Aunt Mary
came in. She had been out and had not
heard of Gradma Deane's visit. But
Cora stole up to her uncle, and, winding
her arms about his neck, whispered:


CT shall believe it always, Uncle
Charlie, now have heard the story OF
Farmer Keep, that there is a blossom in
the wilderness of every heart"


lit was a sultry August day in the sum
mer 1 passed at Meadow Brook. The
wind, low and slumberous as the hush OF
mothers voice at nightfall, crept up
among the corn and down among the
rye and wheatfelds, that lay like broad
green folds about the dwelling of Farm.
er Keep. There was no poem of flowers
about the front yard; no graceful, har.
monizing touches of creeping vine OF
waving curtains about the old red home
stead and yet it had a quiet, substan
tial, matter of-fact physiognomy, thai
somehow made a home feeling about
your heart.


/ think it must have been this uncon
scious feeling which decided the course