It was soon rumored through the village that our new minister was engaged to Phebe Gray, and every body was delighted with the match. Phebe was just the creature for a clergyman’s wife, quiet and gentle, with manners that gave dignity to the softness of her disposition. In the general satisfaction which reigned in the village, Malina was quite overlooked. Her change of appearance was imputed to sadness at parting with her sister; and, at times, when the wedding was talked of in her presence, the rich color which burned over her cheeks, the brilliancy of her eyes, and the flashes of wild merriment that sprung to her lips, deceived the unobserving into a belief of her entire happiness. She spent much of her time at the old parsonage, superintending the arrangements of her sister’s home with a degree of taste and energy which surprised all who witnessed her exertions. The rooms were all newly arranged, delicate paper was purchased at New Haven for the walls, new stepping stones were laid at the front door, green blinds gave a look of elegance and seclusion to the windows; the profuse rose bushes and lilac trees were pruned, and a white picket-fence hedged in the little wilderness of flowers which blossomed in the front yard. The cabinet maker, on School Hill, was busy with the furniture, all of a superior kind. The carpet-weaver had borrowed two _quill-wheels_, and all the spools, for a mile round, in order to expedite the progress of sixty yards of striped carpeting through his cumbrous loom. The house and its adornments were to be comfortable and elegant beyond any thing that had been known in our village for a long time; and all was Malina’s work. Her untiring assiduity created the little paradise which another was to enjoy. Her money purchased the books which filled the little study, whose window opened upon the most verdant corner of the orchard. Her trembling hands placed a new inlaid flute on the little table, and drew the easy chair close by, that the bridegroom might find every thing ready and home-like in his new dwelling.