"O Uncle, I am glad you don't think it's wrong to dance!" cried Helen, coming suddenly out of the house. "Here's good news! Squire Derrick is going to give a feast in his park next Friday. I know that John can't go, because of his sprained ankle; but William Gill will drive us to the park in his chaise. There'll be room for Rhoda and me and Mrs. Gill." "But, Helen, I don't go to merry-makings," said Rhoda, gravely. "We have never taken part in anything of that kind. And as to father's remark, King David's sort of dancing was very different from the waltzes and polkas and galops that there will be on Friday night." Helen's face clouded like that of a disappointed child. "O Uncle, would there be any harm in my dancing?" she asked. "No harm exactly, my girl," responded the farmer uneasily, as he picked a piece of dry moss off the wall. "But even when things are lawful, they are not always expedient. You are a married woman, you see, and your husband's under a cloud, and miles away--poor fellow!" "Ah!" sighed Helen, "I'm always doomed to suffer for his sins! I thought that perhaps a little bit of fun would help me to forget my troubles." Poor Helen was still grovelling at the foot of her mountain. Large tears stood in her soft eyes. The farmer gave her a quick glance, then looked away, and busied himself with the little cushion of moss that still lay in his broad palm. At heart he was more than half a Puritan, and hated jigs and feastings as lustily as did the Gideons and Grace-be-heres of Cromwell's day. But he was far too tender-natured a man to bear the sight of a woman's tears. But for that unfortunate allusion which her father had made to Robert Clarris, Rhoda would have set her face as a flint against going to the fête. But his tone of pity stirred up all her old resentment. Why was this young wife, lovely and foolish, left without her lawful protector? Had she not said truly that she was doomed to suffer for his sins? After all, it was scarcely her fault, perhaps, that she was not elevated by her trial. To "erect ourselves above ourselves" is a bliss that we do not all reach. And it is a bliss which bears such a close relationship to pain, that one has no right to be hard on a fellow-mortal who chooses the lower ground. Thoughts like these were passing through Rhoda's mind, while Helen still wept silently. But it did not occur to Miss Farren that the truest kindness that can be done to another is to raise him. She forgot that it is better to stretch out a hand and say, "Friend, come up higher," than to step down to his level. At that moment she thought only of pacifying Helen. Of late her cousin had grown very dear to her, partly, perhaps, for the sake of her little child. Her whole soul recoiled from the harvest-feast. She hated the clownish merriment, and the dancing and drinking; and yet, to please Helen, she was willing to endure much that was distasteful.