His mother oftenest sat in a tiny little drawing-room, which smelt of withered rose-leaves. I think it must smell of them still. I believe it smelt of them a hundred years before she saw the place. Clare loved the smell of the rose-leaves and disliked the smell of the tobacco; yet he preferred the study with its dingy books to the pretty drawing-room without his mother. There was a village, a very small one, in the parish, and a good many farm-houses. Such was the place in which Clare spent the next few years of his life, and there his new parents loved him heartily. The only thing about him that troubled them, besides the possibility of losing him, was, that they could not draw out the tiniest smile upon his sweet, moonlight-face. Chapter VI. WHAT DID DRAW OUT HIS FIRST SMILE. Mr. Porson was a man about five and forty; his wife was a few years younger. His theories of religion were neither large nor lofty; he accepted those that were handed down to him, and did not trouble himself as to whether they were correct. He did what was better: he tried constantly to obey the law of God, whether he found it in the Bible or in his own heart. Thus he was greater in the kingdom of heaven than thousands that knew more, had better theories about God, and could talk much more fluently concerning religion than he. By obeying God he let God teach him. So his heart was always growing; and where the heart grows, there is no fear of the intellect; there it also grows, and in the best fashion of growth. He was very good to his people, and not foolishly kind. He tried his best to help them to be what they ought to be, to make them bear their troubles, be true to one another, and govern themselves. He was like a father to them. For some, of course, he could do but little, because they were locked boxes with nothing in them; but for a few he did much. Perhaps it was because he was so good to his flock that God gave him little Clare to bring up. Perhaps it was because he and his wife were so good to Clare, that by and by a wonderful thing took place. About three years after the earthquake, Mrs. Porson had a baby-girl sent her for her very own. The father and mother thought themselves the happiest couple on the face of the earth--and who knows but they were! If they were not, so much the better! for then, happy as they were, there were happier yet than they; and who, in his greatest happiness, would not be happier still to know that the earth held happier than he!