"Well, it seems as if he were related, or belonged to you in some way. When I think of one, I can't help thinking of the other." "O dear!" exclaimed Lottie, still laughing, blushing, and affecting comic alarm; "being joined together by a minister's wife is almost as bad as by the minister himself." "Almost as good, you mean. You would have my congratulation rather than sympathy if you secured such a prince among men." "How little you know about him, Mrs. Dlimm! He is going to be a poor, forlorn home missionary; and your husband's increased salary will be royal compared with his." "He will never be forlorn; and how long will he be poor?" --"All his life possibly." "That's not very long. What will come after? What kind of a master is he serving?" "Do you know," said Lottie, lowering her tone, and giving her chair a little confidential hitch toward the simple-hearted lady with whom formality and circumlocution were impossible, "that I am beginning to think about these things a great deal?" "I don't wonder, my dear," said Mrs. Dlimm, with a little sigh of satisfaction. "No one could help thinking about him who saw his manly courtesy and tact the evening you were here." "O, no," said Lottie, blushing still more deeply; "I did not mean that. Please understand me. Mr. Hemstead is only a chance acquaintance that I have met while visiting my aunt, Mrs. Marchmont. I mean that when I was here last I was a very naughty girl, but I have since been thinking how I could be a better one. Indeed, I should like to be a Christian, as you are." In a moment the little lady was all tender solicitude. She was one who believed in conversion; and, to her, being converted was the greatest event of life. But just then Hemstead entered, and she had enough natural, womanly interest--not curiosity--to note the unconscious welcome of Lottie's eyes, and the quick color come and go in her face, as if a fire were burning in her heart and throwing its flickering light upon her fair features. "Chance acquaintance, indeed!" she thought. "Why, here is this city-bred girl blushing as I once did about Mr. Dlimm. Whether she knows it or not, her blushes must tell the same story as mine." But though Mrs. Dlimm was so unconventional, she had tact, and turned the conversation to the subject of the donation party. "See here," she exclaimed exultantly, tugging a bulky commentary; "this is one of the results of your coming the other evening. Mr. Dlimm has been wanting this book a long time, and now he pores over it so much that I am getting jealous." "The opinions expressed in such a ponderous volume ought to have great weight, surely," said Hemstead, smiling. "And do you know," she continued, in an aside to Lottie, "that each of the children has had a new warm winter suit? and, wonderful to tell, I have bought myself a dress right from the store, instead of making over something sent me by brother Abel's wife from New York."