"Let me tell you a secret," and he drew the boy and whispered in his ear, "she is going to manage me on just those terms." Then little Susie came sidling in, and Gregory took her in his arms, saying, "So dimpled, yet so false, you renounced me for a chipmonk; and now I am going to be Aunt Annie's beau till I'm gray." Jeff next appeared with a basket of wood. Gregory gave his black hand an honest shake, and said, "Why, Jeff, old fellow, what is the matter with you to-night? The last time I saw you you looked as if you were driving me to the cemetery." "Well, Misser Gregory," said Jeff, ducking and shuffling. "Ise did come mighty neah takin' de turnin' to de cem'try dat day. I tho't you looked as if you wanted to go dar." As they sat down to tea, Zibbie put her head in at the door, and said, "The gude God bless ye, for ye ha' kept the auld 'ooman fra the cauld wourld yet." Delighted Hannah could not pass a biscuit without a courtesy. That evening the hickory fire glowed and turned to bright and fragrant coals as in the days past, but Annie looked wistfully toward her father's vacant chair, and sighed, "If father were only here!" "Don't grieve, darling," said Gregory, tenderly. "He is at home, as we are." A few evenings later Gregory brought up from the city a large, square bundle. "What have you there?" said Annie, greeting him as the reader can imagine. "Your epitaph." "O, Walter! so soon?" His answer was a smile, and quickly opening the pack age, he showed a rich, quaint frame containing some lines in illuminated text. Placing it where the light fell clearly, he drew her to him and said, "Read that." "God sent His messenger of faith, And whispered in the maiden's heart, 'Rise up and look from where thou art, And scatter with unselfish hands Thy freshness on the barren sands And solitudes of death.'" "O beauty of holiness, Of self-forgetfulness!" With a caress of unspeakable tenderness he said, "You are the maiden, and God sent you to me." THE END