of the playful child who, in that very room where he was sitting, used to tease and worry him so much with her lessons poorly learned, and the never-ending jokes played off upon her teacher.  He had thought of her so often when across the sea, and, knowing her love of the beautiful, he had never looked upon a painting or scene of rare beauty that he did not wish her by his side sharing in the pleasure.  He had brought her from that far-off land many little trophies which he thought she would prize, and which he was going to take with him when he went to the farmhouse.  He never dreamed of her coming there to-night.  She would, of course, wait for him.  Helen had, even when it was more her place to call upon him first.  How, then, was he amazed when, just as the sun was going down and he was watching its last rays lingering on the brow of the hill across the pond, the library door was opened wide and the room seemed suddenly filled with life and joy, as a graceful figure, with reddish, golden hair, bounded across the floor, and winding its arms around his neck gave him the hearty kiss which Katy had in her mind when she declined Aunt Betsy’s favorite vegetable.

Morris Grant was not averse to being kissed, and yet the fact that Katy Lennox had kissed him in such a way awoke a chill of disappointment, for it said that to her he was the teacher still, the elder brother, whom, as a child, she had in her pretty way loaded with caresses.

“Oh, Cousin Morris!” she exclaimed, and, still holding his hand:  “Why didn’t you come over at noon, you naughty, naughty boy?  But what a splendid-looking man you’ve got to be, though! and what do you think of me?” she added, blushing for the first time, as he held her off from him and looked into the sunny face.

“I think you wholly unchanged,” he answered, so gravely that Katy began to pout as she said:  “And you are sorry, I know.  Pray, what did you expect of me, and what would you have me be?”

“Nothing but what you are—­the same Kitty as of old,” he answered, his own bright smile breaking all over his sober face.

He saw that his manner repelled her, and he tried to be natural, succeeding so well that Katy forgot her first disappointment, and making him sit by her on the sofa, where she could see him distinctly, she poured forth a volley of talk, telling him, among other things, how much afraid of him some of his letters made her—­they were so serious and so like a sermon.

“You wrote me once that you thought of being a minister,” she added.  “Why did you change your mind?  It must be splendid, I think, to be a young clergyman—­invited to so many tea-drinkings, and having all the girls in the parish after you, as they always are after unmarried ministers.”

Into Morris Grant’s eyes there stole a troubled light as he thought how little Katy realized what it was to be a minister of God—­to point the people heavenward and teach them the right way.  There was a moment’s pause, and then he tried to explain to her that he hoped he had not been influenced either by thought of tea-drinking or having the parish girls after him, but rather by an honest desire to choose the sphere in which he could accomplish the most good.