He had been spending the hour of his absence from us in the chamber of a little fellow, one of our number, who had been terribly hurt by the machinery of a factory in which he worked.  He took every one of us there with him, awakening our liveliest interest, and making us anxious to be helpful to every suffering fellow-creature.  Some of us had to cry a little at the kind remembrances the poor crushed child sent us, and we felt quite self-reproachful that we had not thought more of him, and been quieter and more orderly in every way.  Then, without any dry, hard preaching, he planted that lesson, left it to take root without digging it up again with personal exhortation, and told us something else.  Surely no one could have better divined just what we wanted to know, and just how we would have liked it related.  Love first of all; then cheerfulness, simplicity, and a strong, earnest enthusiasm that made attention compulsory and the attraction irresistible.

I do not believe I ever felt better satisfied in my life than when he closed and the orderly dismission began:  then he turned to Bessie, and I saw that my friend had found the mission of heart-and soul-work, and was being drawn heavenward by the hand she loved.  Such a timid tenderness as pervaded his every look and word! such a sweet consciousness as lighted hers!  I laughed at my folly about Tom, and felt that I should be delighted to see him at Haines’, and introduce him to the dear, good clergyman whom Bessie had the good sense to appreciate.

The Rev. Charles Pepper was the nephew of Miss Mary.  I soon changed my prejudiced opinion of that lady into a clearer view of her merits.  She was the Paul that planted:  being a woman of wealth and strong religious bias, she had built the mission chapel, gathered together the children and taught them, while her good nephew added the superintendence of the school to his church duties in a different quarter.

“Bessie, does your father know—?” I began as we went homeward together.

She interrupted me:  “About Miss Pepper?  Oh yes, indeed!  She called to ask his permission for me to teach them, and has been at our house twice since.

“You know I don’t mean her at all,” I said, laughing.  “I mean her nephew, Bessie Haines.”

But Bessie faltered:  she had not the courage to speak freely, since it was evident they had not spoken so to each other yet.  She knew she loved and was beloved, but could not force the delicate secret into words, since it was yet unavowed between them.

“All I am afraid of, Bess,” said I, determined to make her practical, for she was as ethereal as if she and her love meant to live in the clouds all their days—­“all I am afraid of is, that your father’s vision may threaten your peace; for, rely on it, Bess, it is about you and you alone, or why should uncle keep praying for you as a ‘young damsel,’ and ‘handmaiden,’ and ‘female pilgrim,’ and all that?”