When Malina Gray left the funeral procession she went to the parsonage house. The ashes lay cold upon its hearth-stone, and a chill, desolate silence reigned through the building, for the old woman who had been housekeeper had not yet returned, and no living thing was there save a pet robin that stood mute upon his perch, and a large gray cat which walked slowly from room to room as if wondering at the silence that reigned there. A chill crept over Malina as the cat came with a soft purr and rubbed his coat against her ankle. She looked at the robin, there was no food to his cage, and his dejected manner probably arose from hunger. The back door opened upon an orchard, and a line of cherry-trees, red with fruit, ranged along the stone wall. The minister had always kept his orchard and the grass around the back door steps neat and green, but this year a growth of plantain leaves had started up amid the grass, and docks grew rife around the well curb, a few paces from the stepping stones. During his illness Malina had scarcely noticed these things, but now that the minister was dead and she had no hopes nor fears regarding him, they struck upon her heart with painful force. She went to the nearest tree, gathered some ripe cherries for the bird, and carried them into the house. The poor creature was half famished, and coming down from his perch, pecked at the ruby fruit with an eagerness that made the young girl smile through her tears. “Poor fellow, he wants drink,” she murmured softly, and laying the cherries that filled her hand on a table, she took a glass and went out to get some water. How much more effective than a thousand lectures were the silence and the familiar objects that surrounded Malina. It seemed as if she had learned to think and feel for the first time in that desolated place. As she grasped the well-pole with her small hand and saw the deep round bucket rise up from the water, with the bright drops dashing over the moss-covered brim, she began to weep afresh, and her hands trembled so that she could hardly balance it on the curb. How many times had she seen the minister come from that door, rest that same bucket on the well-curb, and slant it down to meet her lips, when she was a little girl and had come with her mates from the close school-room, at “play-time,” to drink at the minister’s well. How often had he filled her apron with cherries, and allowed her to pick up the golden apples from that orchard; now she could almost see his new grave through the trees—and she had dared to speak unkindly, rudely to him. Malina was athirst and she remembered the grateful coolness of the water, but with all these memories swarming to her heart she could not touch her lips to that moss-rimmed bucket; the waters dripping over it seemed too pure for one who could speak as she had spoken to the dead. That which Mrs. Gray had struggled and waited for a whole year was accomplished in a few moments by less stern influences than human