They pushed the shining, wet leaves aside, and found the flowers, and then John watched his wife put them in a shallow dish on his table. "It is weak in me to come in here," Helen said, smiling. "I know you ought to work, yet here I sit." "This is Thursday," he answered, "and I wrote my sermon on the train yesterday, so after I have copied the reports I can afford to be lazy. I cannot bear to have you out of my sight!" He drew her brown head down on his shoulder, and stroked her face softly. "When I'm away from you, Helen, I seem only half alive." "And in three weeks I have to go to Ashurst," she said ruefully. "It is too bad I couldn't have gone while you were at General Assembly, but it wouldn't have been right for us both to be away from the parsonage at once." "No. Well, we have the three weeks yet. Yes, I must send you away, and get at the reports. How you brighten this room, Helen! I think it must be the sunshine that seems caught in your hair. It gleams like bronze oak-leaves in October." "Love has done wonderful things for your eyes, John," she said, smiling, as she left him. She put on her heavy gloves and brought her trowel from under the front porch, and she and the maid began to dig up the fresh, damp earth on the sunny side of the house. "We'll have some sweet-peas here, Alfaretta," she said cheerily, "and I think it would be nice to let the nasturtiums run over that log, don't you? And you must plant these morning-glory seeds around the kitchen windows." Suddenly she noticed that Alfaretta, instead of listening, was gazing down the road, and her round freckled face flushing hotly. "He sha'n't come in," she muttered,--"he sha'n't come in!" and dropping the hammer, and the box of tacks, and the big ball of twine, she hurried to the gate, her rough hands clinched into two sturdy fists. Helen looked towards the road, and saw Mr. Dean come stiffly up to the gate, for lumbago was not altogether a memory. Alfaretta reached it as he did, and as she stooped to lean her elbows on its top bar she slipped the latch inside. "Alfaretta," said her father pompously, "open the gate, if you please." As he spoke, he rapped upon it with his heavy stick, and the little latch clattered and shook. "Were you coming to see me, pa?" the girl asked nervously. "I--I'm busy this morning. It's my night out, so I'll see you this evenin'." "Yes, I'll see you," returned Mr. Dean significantly, "but not now. I didn't come to see you now; I'm here to see the preacher, Alfaretta. Come, don't keep me out here in the sun," he added impatiently, shaking the gate again. "I guess he's too busy to see you this morning,--he's awful busy." "I guess he's not too busy to see me," said the elder. Alfaretta's face was white now, but she still stood barring the gateway. "Well, you can't see him, anyhow;" her voice had begun to tremble, and Mrs. Ward, who had joined them, said, with a surprised look,--