AT THE SPRING-HOUSE AGAIN.
He told her frankly the history of the engagement; and then he and Patty sat and talked in a happiness so great that it made them quiet, until some one came to call her, when Morton walked up to the house to renew his acquaintance with the invalid and mollified Captain Lumsden.
"Faix, Moirton," said Brady, afterward, when he came to understand how matters stood, "you've got the answer in the book. It's quare enough. Now, 'one and one is two' is aisy enough, but 'one and one is one' makes the hardest sum iver given to anybody. You've got it, and I'm glad of it. May ye niver conjugate the varb 'to love' anyways excipt prisent tinse, indicative mood, first parson, plural number, 'we love.' I don't keer ef ye add the futur' tinse, and say, 'we will love,' nor ef ye put in the parfect and say, 'we have loved,' but may ye always stick fast to first parson, plural number, prisint tinse, indicative mood, active v'ice!"
Morton returned to Jenkinsville circuit in some trepidation. He feared that the old brethren would blame him more than ever. But this time he found himself the object of much sympathy. Ann Eliza had forestalled all gossip by renewing her engagement with the very willing Bob Holston, who chuckled a great deal to think how he had "cut out" the preacher, after all. And when Brother Magruder came to understand that he had not understood Morton's case at all, and to understand that he never should be able to understand it, he thought to atone for any mistake he might have made by advising the bishop to send Brother Goodwin to the circuit that included Hissawachee. And Morton liked the appointment better than Magruder had expected. Instead of living with his mother, as became a dutiful son, he soon installed himself for the year at the house of Captain Lumsden, in the double capacity of general supervisor of the moribund man's affairs and son-in-law.
There rise before me, as I write these last lines, visions of circuits and stations of which Morton was afterward the preacher-in-charge, and of districts of which he came to be presiding elder. Are not all of these written in the Book of the Minutes of the Conferences? But the silent and unobtrusive heroism of Patty and her brave and life-long sacrifices are recorded nowhere but in the Book of God's Remembrance.
THE END.