After receiving the solemn, fervent blessing of the sufferer, Flora quitted the cottage, followed by her companion. Ada felt that she had been standing on holy ground; she was awed for the moment, sobered by the scene of which she had been a witness. Did she envy her cousin that dying blessing? At the gate of Mrs. Arkwright’s little garden they were met by the silver-haired clergyman, evidently on his way to visit the suffering member of his flock. "Just where I should have expected to meet our Flora," he said, with a beaming expression on his benevolent face. He courteously greeted Ada, to whom he had before been introduced, and expressed his hope that her visit to the country would be a prolonged one. "Oh no! I leave Laurel Bank at the end of next week; and I wish," Ada added, laying her hand on her cousin’s arm, "to carry away Flora with me." "Carry away our Flora," cried the old clergyman, shaking his head; "would you rob our poor village of its sunshine?" Flora and Ada walked on some way in silence. "I wonder," thought the latter, "who would miss me were I to go to New Zealand to-morrow! Would there be one smile the less amid my gay companions? would I leave a blank in the brilliant assemblies which I have frequented so long? should I be more regretted than one of the flowers which deck the ball-room for a night, to be thrown aside withered and faded in the morning? After all, I am not certain whether Flora’s life is not happier than mine; at least I suspect that it will be pleasanter to look back upon when youth and all its follies are past!" *CHAPTER III.* *CONFESSION.* "Did you not admire the sermon?" said Flora to Ada, as, during the interval between services on Sunday, the two cousins strolled through the shrubbery. "Mr. Ward was very earnest." "Was he not?--and so eloquent! he is a very delightful preacher! You don’t know how we missed him when he went away last winter for a few months. We had such a dreadful man, with a sepulchral voice, really, I know it was very wrong, but I could scarcely keep awake while he preached." And the young lady went on describing the messenger of the gospel in much the same terms as Ada would have used in speaking of an actor whom she did not admire. "But Mr. Ward is so different," she said in conclusion. "I was quite delighted with his sermon; were not you?" "To own the truth, it made me feel a little uncomfortable," replied Ada. "That is a compliment to the preacher’s power," said Flora, with a smile. "I never heard him speak more forcibly than he did to-day on the parable of the sower." "And you were delighted with the sermon because all the last part of it belonged to yourself,--all the beautiful description of the good seed springing up." Flora gave a little deprecating "Oh!" "While I was wondering which part applied to me--" "And which did you fix upon?" said Flora; she was smiling, but Ada was grave.