Mrs. Garnet continued to reside at Mount Calm, happy in her vocation of “Lady Bountiful” to the neighborhood—happy, that is to say, as long as the fine weather of spring, summer, and autumn last, during which, in her missions of usefulness or benevolence, she could walk, ride, or drive through the most beautiful country in the world; but, when winter came, with its wind and rain, and hail and snowstorms, its impassable roads, and its long spells of tempestuous or intensely cold weather, and its longer seasons of enforced confinement within-doors, the lonely lady of Mount Calm found the solitary grandeur of her mansion house dreary enough. The minister had been her coadjutor, and often her companion, in her labors of beneficence, during the preceding eight or ten months; and now, in the stormy winter weather, he was her willing representative and almoner among the sick, the poor, and the suffering. No fury of tempest overhead, or depth of snow, or quagmire under foot, could interrupt the weekly visits of the pastor to the lady. The solitary lady knew this; and so, even in the most frightful weather, during the darkest, dreariest, and loneliest seasons, there was one day in the week to which she could look forward with certainty of enjoyment—namely, to Wednesday, when, let the wind and the rain, the hail and the snow, do what it might to prevent him, the minister was sure to present himself at Mount Calm. Each Wednesday evening it became more painful for these two friends to part, and the parting was protracted to a later hour. One very stormy night in February, when he had lingered by her fireside later than ever before, and had at last risen to take leave, he detained her hand in his a long time in silence, and then faltered: “Alice, are we never to be more to each other than now?” The lady shook her head in mournful negation, and there was a “soul’s tragedy” in the tone wherewith she answered simply: “We are old, now!” The timid proposition was not renewed then; the shyness of age, worse than the shyness of youth, silenced the lips of the minister. The proposal probably never would have been renewed, but for the intervention of the cordial-hearted Elsie—that happy, healthful, sworn foe to all morbid scruples and needless suffering. She had been made acquainted with her mother’s early history, and for years past she had watched over the delicate lady with more care and tenderness than over any of her own robust and blooming babies. Now that she was divided from her, she felt increased solicitude for the welfare of the fragile, sensitive recluse. It was toward the spring that she was awakened to a knowledge of the attachment existing between the lady and the pastor; and, after taking observation for a few days, she one day said to her mother: “Mother, why don’t you marry the minister?” “Dear Elsie, what could suggest such an absurd thing to your mind? What would the neighbors say? At our age, too!”