"Thank you kindly, Master Foster." Meanwhile Susan had been feeling upon the little shelf on the wall close to where she sat, for a small book, which at length she found. "George," she said, "I have a book here which I ought to give you back. 'Tis those Watts's Hymns which you gave to me a few days before Miss Alice's wedding;" she could not repress a sigh. "If you remember, you wrote both our Christian names upon it,--and then said you would add the surname when one name would do for both. I don't think it is right I should keep that book, and you the husband of another; and yet I could never find it in my heart to destroy it. Besides, I can't read all the beautiful hymns that are in it; but you can, and sometimes it may do you good perhaps to read them." George indeed remembered giving Susan the little book: he had that day obtained the promise of Master Mumford's house, and he had that day gained her consent to their being speedily asked in church. They had then written their names in the manner described by Susan, and had talked over their future prospects, with the assurance of soon being indissolubly united. As George took the book from Susan's hands, he felt them tremble. He was scarcely more composed himself. The appearance of the little volume, the sight of the writing, annihilated for a moment the intervening two years; and he saw Susan as she then stood beside him, radiant with health, joy, and tenderness. Jane Dixon would not have been pleased had she known with what pain he received this present, with what regret he looked back upon the image thus conjured up to his mind. The tears were in his eyes as he held it. "If it is not right for you to keep the book, Susan, I do not think it is right I should; for I am sure I shall never look upon it without wishing,--without remembering----Oh! Susan, how happy we were when I gave you that book!" His voice broke, and he passed the back of his hand several times over his eyes. Strong emotion in a stout and sturdy peasant, whose feelings we are sure are thoroughly genuine, and in which we are satisfied there is no touch of sickly, morbid sensibility, is always an affecting subject of contemplation. It was almost too much for old Sarah, who now wept like a child; while Susan experienced among the poignant regrets which overpowered her, a mixture of satisfaction to find she was so tenderly recollected. "I did not think you would have minded it, George; but if it makes you think too much of by-gone days, why, perhaps, 'twill be best you should give the book to mother to keep. I would not wish you to think any more about me now; it would be no ways right." But it was a comfort to Susan, though she was not aware of it, that she had to tell him not to think about her.