At the table, too, Helen's pretty air of shyness, her enthusiasm and her blushes, rendered her very attractive. With her dear pastor seated at her right hand, and Mrs. Knowles occupying a corresponding place by her brother, with Sybil erect and angular on one side, and Frederic opposite, the young girl declared she was the happiest creature in the world. Indeed, since parting from her guardian, she seemed to ignore his existence; to wish to free herself from the recollection of the trying months through which she had passed. There was little now of those fitful moods, flashing eyes, and bitter expressions. "The country is so sweet," she said once to Mr. Frederic, as they were walking together near a hedge of hawthorn. "I can pray here with the hope that my heavenly Father will listen. Everything reminds me of his love." "Yes," he answered, looking down at the fresh, girlish face, lighted with enthusiasm; "yes, God seems nearer to me in the country." "I love to think it is his voice when the birds sing, or the water gurgles so sweetly in the brook," Helen went on. "Do you remember," she asked, looking archly in his face, "how you scolded me once for being afraid of the geese in farmer Noyes' pond? "'God made the pretty geese,' you said. "And I asked: 'Is it naughty, then, to be afraid of anything God made?'" The young clergyman threw back his head and laughed aloud, not a common act of his, by the way. "Can you remember that, Helen? Why you couldn't have been more than four years old. I know I had to take you in my arms, and carry you out of the reach of the dreadful monsters." "I don't think I forget a single kind word ever spoken to me," was her eager reply. "Nor, it seems, have you forgotten my scolding!" "Oh, you have scolded me a great many times beside that, you know!" Helen tried to assume a careless tone, but in spite of her efforts, her voice quivered a little. "Have I?" he asked, more moved than he liked her to see. "I can't recall the occasions to mind." "You found me gazing in the brook, and told me I must not be vain. You refused to take my hand and lead me home as I begged you, because you thought I had been unkind to a poor boy. I had scratched his face with all my strength, but it was because he drowned my pet kitten. After your reproof, I took the boy home and gave him my only dollar, a silver one. But I remember, even now, how mixed up my ideas of right and wrong became the more I reflected on the subject. I was certainly wicked, because you said so, but how could it be right for him to drown my pretty kitten?" "I am ashamed of my injustice, and will not go a step farther, until you tell me you will forgive my crossness." He stood directly in her path, and for one instant she raised her eyes to his face. Then, with crimson cheeks and quickened pulse, she said faintly: "Please let me go on," and he did.