"And you were so to me, Madam," returned Mr. Campbell, with a smile; "that shelf (pointing to the place where she used to deposit the sweet things she reserved for her _brothers_ on their return from school) often reminds me of you." Mrs. Meridith smiled also. "Ah! those were happy days," said she; "would I could forget many that has intervened!" "Madam, I am sorry any of your days should have been less happy," replied the farmer, "but let us hope that there are yet happier ones in store." Mrs. Meridith felt that the soothing voice of friendship, though from so humble an individual, was a cordial to her heart, and she thanked him for expressing it. "I wish," said she, "to forget all distinctions of rank between us, for I have found very little to recompense me for the trouble these have given; and for the future I hope you and your wife will look on me as your friend, and treat me as such." "Your friendship, Madam," returned Mr. Campbell, "I should be ungrateful not to prize, and I hope I shall do nothing to forfeit it; but though you are so kind as to forget the distinction there is between us, I trust we never shall. Consider _us_, Madam, as the most faithful of your servants, and from our knowledge of each other in our younger days, believe me the most attached of your tenants." Mrs. Meridith, after walking over the garden and visiting the barn, in which, when a child, she used to play with Anna and her brothers, fixed a day for Mr. and Mrs. Campbell to dine with her; and retired with a sighing heart, yet not unmixed with pleasure at having found a friend. "Perhaps," said she to herself, "in these humble acquaintance I may find more real pleasure, and greater gratitude than in more refined society: had his mother been alive, I should have been happy to have made her comfortable; but at least I will do good to her sons. I know perhaps better than I did how to bestow what is useful, and money I have in plenty. May I be enabled to make a right use of it." She returned home more at ease than she had felt for some time, and resolved to exert herself for the people of the village. "But it shall be by employing them," thought she, and she immediately planned several alterations in her gardens and pleasure grounds, and ordered her servants to employ all the old men and boys who were at that time out of work about them. CHAPTER II. Mrs. Meridith also visited the cottages of the poor, and from every one she heard something of the goodness of Mr. and Mrs. Campbell. "His father and mother were kind to us," said one of the old women, "and so is he and his wife also: _she_ lets nothing be wasted in her dairy, or her pantry, and is always kind to us when we go there, and gives us something to eat and drink, and often some victuals to bring home with us."