I have encountered shapes of evil; while, on the other hand, I have found beautiful, heroic love and self-denial in those who had seemed to me frivolous and selfish." So would Dr. Singletary discourse as we strolled over Blueberry Hill, or drove along the narrow willow-shaded road which follows the windings of the river. He had read and thought much in his retired, solitary life, and was evidently well satisfied to find in me a gratified listener. He talked well and fluently, with little regard to logical sequence, and with something of the dogmatism natural to one whose opinions had seldom been subjected to scrutiny. He seemed equally at home in the most abstruse questions of theology and metaphysics, and in the more practical matters of mackerel-fishing, corn-growing, and cattle-raising. It was manifest that to his book lore he had added that patient and close observation of the processes of Nature which often places the unlettered ploughman and mechanic on a higher level of available intelligence than that occupied by professors and school men. To him nothing which had its root in the eternal verities of Nature was "common or unclean." The blacksmith, subjecting to his will the swart genii of the mines of coal and iron; the potter, with his "power over the clay;" the skipper, who had tossed in his frail fishing-smack among the icebergs of Labrador; the farmer, who had won from Nature the occult secrets of her woods and fields; and even the vagabond hunter and angler, familiar with the habits of animals and the migration of birds and fishes,--had been his instructors; and he was not ashamed to acknowledge that they had taught him more than college or library. CHAPTER III. THE DOCTOR'S MATCH-MAKING. "GOOD-MORNING, Mrs. Barnet," cried the Doctor, as we drew near a neat farm-house during one of our morning drives. A tall, healthful young woman, in the bloom of matronly beauty, was feeding chickens at the door. She uttered an exclamation of delight and hurried towards us. Perceiving a stranger in the wagon she paused, with a look of embarrassment. "My friend, who is spending a few weeks with me," explained the Doctor. She greeted me civilly and pressed the Doctor's hand warmly. "Oh, it is so long since you have called on us that we have been talking of going up to the village to see you, as soon as Robert can get away from his cornfield. You don't know how little Lucy has grown. You must stop and see her." "She's coming to see me herself," replied the Doctor, beckoning to a sweet blue-eyed child in the door-way. The delighted mother caught up her darling and held her before the Doctor. "Does n't she look like Robert?" she inquired. "His very eyes and forehead! Bless me! here he is now." A stout, hale young farmer, in a coarse checked frock and broad straw hat, came up from the adjoining field.