"My darling," said he, in a low and gentle voice, "we shall miss you very much—more than I can tell! Your love and care for your poor grandfather, notwithstanding all the past, have endeared you more and more to my heart, so that it is a bitter trial to think of parting from you, and one which I should strive to avert, were it not that too much of your young life has been given up to seclusion when you might have been deriving both happiness and profit in the world. Your self-denial, dear child, will be rewarded, if it is not already giving you a rich harvest of peaceful and self-approving thoughts!" Jennie could not reply, even had she desired, as they were at the church door, and her uncle was accosted by the senior warden:
"We have a stranger to preach for us to-day, sir," said Mr. Brown, after the accustomed salutations had passed between them.
"Ah! where is our own rector?" asked Mr. Halberg.
"I suppose he is supplying this young minister's pulpit," returned the warden. "It is seldom that we have an exchange, and they say that this stranger is uncommonly eloquent."
"We shall have an opportunity to judge for ourselves," said Mr. Halberg, as he turned from his friend and entered the church with his niece. The service commenced, and as the rich deep tones of the minister fell upon Jennie's ear, there rushed upon her mind a tide of joyous memories that transported her to a sunny home amid the mountains, and a little tomb, and a quiet avenue, and a bench beneath the old maples, where she used to sit and listen to a calm and gentle voice that seemed to reach her even now; and then her thoughts came back to her hallowed employment, and as she raised her eyes to be sure that it was not all a dream, they fell, not upon a strange minister, but upon the same kind friend who had beguiled her childhood's hours.
How many years had passed since she had roamed with him among the hills, not a gay and sportive child, as one who had known nothing of trouble or poverty; but a young being whose gleesomeness had been crowded down by premature cares and sorrows, so that it seldom gushed out as a little child's mirth should always do. Will he recognize her now? She must be so changed! She would scarcely know him but for the voice, and the broad pale forehead that seems to have been expanding all these many years, so wide and high does it appear.
He does not see her, he is all absorbed in the solemn worship, as she too should be—now he is in the pulpit, and as he glances around upon the congregation, his eyes meet the earnest soul that once beamed upon him in his own parish church.
There is no mistaking it. For many a weary hour has it cheered him in his labors. It was but a child's soul, but it was an eager one, on which the seed fell availingly—and now it is a woman's soul, and the good fruit has been nourishing the faint old man who needs it no longer. The minister knows nothing of that, he only sees that it is before him, as desirous as ever of spiritual nourishment, and the people wonder at his zeal and fervor, little thinking of the power there is in a thirsting spirit to awaken the energies of him who dispenseth to them of the waters of life.
The service is over, and Mrs. Dunmore and Jennie meet their old friend, who scarcely dares even to press the hand of the child he used to caress so fondly. Time and absence strangely change us!
"May I see you to-morrow," said he, "before I leave?"