It was while thus engaged, that Boaz, the rich Bethlehemite, came to his reapers, and first saw the lovely stranger. How she afterwards sped, those acquainted with the sacred story need not be told. It only remains for us to add, that she gleaned in the field until even, and beat out all that she had gleaned: and it was an ephah of of barley. And she took it up and went into the city; and her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned; and she brought forth and gave to her that she had received after she was sufficed. And her mother-in-law said unto her, Where hast thou gleaned to-day? and where wroughtest thou? blessed be he that did take knowledge of thee! This is the first of the three Gleaners. The story of the two that follow will be much shorter. * * * * * Circumstances, several years since, led the writer to spend a few days in a secluded little village, in a very retired and beautiful part of the country. It was in the month of August, when the indications of summer were seen on every side--the wheat fields were ready for the hand of the reaper, and during the livelong day there seemed no cessation to the tide of heat that came flowing down from the sun, overwhelming the broad earth and every creature that moved upon it with his fervid influence. The early dawn of morning, and the hour of twilight at the decline of day, seemed to be the only seasons, when one could walk forth with any comfort, to enjoy the rural scenery, that the hand of the Creator had spread with surpassing loveliness around this spot. These seasons were not allowed to pass unimproved. The first morning that I walked forth--while the grey twilight still lingered on hill and dale--casting a sombre, dusky aspect over surrounding objects, as I passed along, refreshed by the fragrant breath exhaled from the fields, cheered by the notes of the feathered tribe who were chanting their early matin lays, and enamored with the glorious scene pencilled on the eastern sky, which brightened and kindled into broader lines of orient radiance every step I took, and every moment I gazed, I saw a young lad, some twelve or thirteen years old, passing by me with a brisk step, but stooping every now and then, to gather up some straws of wheat, that lay scattered along the road. The occurrence, however, awakened no particular attention, and would have been forgotten, had not the same thing been observed in the evening. In returning to my lodgings, after a ramble over the fields on the evening of the same day, I met this boy with quite a bundle of wheat under his arm, moving with a quick step, but stopping every now and then to gather up a single straw that lay in the road.