"Well, I don't know," answered the pastor. "That is, I didn't know but she might think it a little sudden."
"Sudden! why it has been on our minds a whole year. It isn't just the thing for our minister to be boarding about like a schoolmaster. A servant of the Lord should set under his own vine and fig tree."
The minister wiped his face again, and cast a glance toward the meadow, which began to look like home already.
"I stopped at the saw-mill and bespoke the timber," said brother Wells; "so if you'd just as lief, we'll go down and pick out the exact spot."
A smile glowed out on the minister's face. The deacons saw it, and nodded pleasantly one to the other.
"Minister," said Wells, leaning down from his horse, "if you should take a notion to go over yonder any time afore the house is built, just consider this ere black horse as your own."
"Thank you kindly, brother."
"And," said Deacon French, "I stopped at the tailor's coming along; he's got a firstrate piece of English broadcloth, but he says it's seven years since you have been measured, minister, and to make a good fit you'll have to go again."
"Doubtless—doubtless!" answered the minister, ready to cry under all this goodness—a house, a wife, and a new suit of clothes all at once! It really was too much of a mercy; he didn't know how to be thankful enough.
Well, they went down to the meadow, selected a lovely spot for the house, and stopped at the tailor's on their way home. That very week a little boy came over to Deacon Wells, and asked, in a mysterious way, if he would let the minister have his black horse to ride over the hill.