"But I was mistaken. That hadn't come yet. It was a queer composition, that letter. It was to tell me that there was going to be a picnic at the Peak for two or three of the Sunday schools in the neighbourhood; and two of his boys were to be there, and wouldn't I go and see them? There might be a good many easier ways to see them, I thought, than to go up the mountain to do it. However, some of the neighbours were going, so I said I would go." There was another pause here. "I was in some trouble about that time myself. I never said anything to anybody, and I don't suppose anybody suspected it. I had lost my sister lately, and that might well account for having less to say than usual. But I had lost another friend--one that would have been more than a friend if he had lived. We were not to say engaged. We hadn't even kept company much; but when Jim Sedley died down there at Lowell it went hard with me, and for awhile the world seemed to have come to an end for me. "But I went to the picnic with the rest, and I saw the boys and had a little talk with them, just long enough to find out that they missed their mother dreadfully, and that they were much in need of a mother's care; and my heart ached for the little fellows; and, when they were called away to join in some play with the rest, I slipped off into the woods, so as to get away from the talk, and to think it all over by myself. But thinking didn't help me much. There was one thing I could do. I could marry Ezra Stone, and so try to be a mother to them; and as the thought was in my mind I heard Ezra's voice close to me. I would have hid myself or run away if I could have done it, for I was afraid that I would do or say something that I would be sorry for all my life. But I couldn't get away; and there was Ezra saying how glad he was to see me, and that he had come to the Peak on purpose, and a lot more of the same kind. "I was thinking about it all as I sat down there this morning," said Mrs Stone after a little pause. "A hundred times in the days that followed I asked myself whether I could believe that the Lord was taking care of me that day, according to His promise. It was a great while before I could see it so. But I expect He was, though I never should have married Ezra Stone if I hadn't gone up the Peak that day. At least I don't believe I should. "He didn't begin about that, but about business. His sister Susan was going to be married to Nathan Pease, whose farm joined father's old place; and he wanted to buy it, and would I be willing to sell my half of it? I never had calculated much on anything which was likely to come to me from the place; but Myra had always advised me to hold on to my share, and so I said I should have to think about it before I could say whether I would sell or not.