“It’s better, too, now than when I came home,” Helen thought, as with her rich, scarlet fruit she went slowly to the house. “Morris is here, and the new church, and if she likes she can teach Sunday-school, though maybe she will prefer going with Uncle Ephraim. He will be pleased if she does,” and pausing by the door, Helen looked across Fairy Pond in the direction of Silverton village, where the top of a slender spire was just visible—the spire of St. John’s, built within the year, and mostly at the expense of Dr. Morris Grant, who, a zealous churchman himself, had labored successfully to instill into Helen’s mind some of his own peculiar views, as well as to awaken in Mrs. Lennox’s heart the professions which had lain dormant for as long a time as the little black bound book had lain on the cupboard shelf, forgotten and unread. How the doctor’s views were regarded by the Deacon’s family we shall see, by and by. At present our story has to do with Helen, holding her bowl of berries by the rear door and looking across the distant fields. With one last glance at the object of her thoughts she re-entered the house, where her mother was arranging the square table for dinner, bringing out the white stone china instead of the mulberry set kept for every day use. “We ought to have some silver forks,” she said despondingly, as she laid by each plate the three tined forks of steel, to pay for which Helen and Katy had picked huckle-berries on the hills and dried apples from the orchard. “Never mind, mother,” Helen answered cheerily: “if Katy is as she used to be she will care more for us than for silver, and I guess she is, for I imagine it would take a great deal to make her anything but a warmhearted, merry little creature.” This was sensible Helen’s tribute of affection to the little, gay, chattering butterfly, at that moment an occupant of Uncle Ephraim’s corn-colored wagon, and riding with that worthy toward home, throwing kisses to every barefoot boy and girl she met, and screaming with delight as the old familiar way-marks met her view. “There is Aunt Betsy, with her dress pinned up as usual,” she cried, when at last the wagon stopped before the door, and the four women came hurriedly out to meet her, almost smothering her with caresses, and then holding her off to see if she had changed.