Poor little Fanny was as much out of her element at Butternut farm as a humming-bird in a cotton-mill. She could not “heel a stocking,” although Mrs. Quip “knew how as soon as she was born.” She could neither chain-stitch, cross-stitch, button-hole-stitch, nor cat-stitch, though she often got a stitch in her side trying to “get out of Mrs. Quip’s way.” She did not know “whether her grandmother was orthodox or Unitarian;” whether Cousin John “belonged to the church,” or not; in fact, as Mrs. Quip remarked, the child seemed to her “not to have the slightest idea what she was created for.” “Cousin John” came at last! with an empty pack, a full purse, and a fuller heart. Fanny flew into his outspread arms, and nestled into his bosom, with a fullness of joy which the friendless only can feel. Out of sound of Mrs. Quip’s trip-hammer tongue, out of sight of Mrs. Quip’s omniscient eyes, Fanny whispered in “Cousin John’s” ear, crying, laughing, and kissing the while, all her little troubles. Cousin John did not smile, for he knew too well how keenly the little trusting heart, which beat against his own, could suffer or enjoy; so he wiped her tears away, and told her that she should say good-by to Butternut farm, and accompany him on his next trip, as far as Canton, where he would leave her with a nice old lady, who had a red and green parrot, and who taught a school for the village children. * * * * * It was a pretty sight--Cousin John and Fanny; she, skipping on before him to pluck a flower, then returning to glide her little hand in his, and walk contentedly by his side; or, standing on some stile, waiting to be lifted over, with her bonnet blown back, and her bright little face beaming with smiles; Cousin John sometimes answering her questions at random, as the tones of her voice, or the expression of her face, recalled her lost mother; sometimes looking proudly upon the bud, as he thought how sweet and fair would be the blossom, but more often gazing at her tearfully, as Lucy’s last solemn words rang in his ears. Percy was a riddle to himself. In the child’s pure presence, every spot upon his soul’s mirror he would have wiped away. Lips which had never framed a prayer for themselves, now murmured one for _her_. Feet which had strayed into forbidden paths, would fain have found for _her_ tiny feet the straight and narrow path of life. Insensibly “a little child was leading him”--nearer to Thee, O God, nearer to Thee.