"Groom, you mean, you precious pet," said Marion, catching the child in her arms and hiding her burning cheeks in Ethel's neck.
Mamma thought this too good to keep from papa, and even threatened Marion that she would acquaint Mr. Angus with the double honor that awaited him; but the young lady's entreaties prevailed, and the letter went off without the joke.
The rise of ground on which the new church was being built was in a part of the town not yet much occupied by families. The road from the old church, school-house, etc., to the depot wound gracefully around the foot of the hill, and had been widened and improved within a short time. It was about one quarter of a mile to the railroad station, and an equal distance from the village, which had grown up in what was once the centre. Prior to the existence of the railroad, it was Mr. Asbury's most profitable grass land, and he now owned as far as the depot on one side, and quite down to Shawsheen Lake on the other. The elevated situation of the land, together with the picturesque views it commanded, rendered it peculiarly eligible for building lots. Speculators from the city had already made favorable offers to the owner for the whole field, but, with the exception of one hundred feet front by one hundred and fifty deep, donated to the church, and a house-lot nearly four times the size, next adjoining, Mr. Asbury refused to sell.
Mr. Angus's letters to Marion kept her informed of his visits to London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow, where he was studying into the best-approved methods of church work in reference to his own labors among his chosen people. He told her of sewing schools, not only for children, but for mothers, where they were taught to cut and make garments for boys and girls, given simple recipes for cooking, and taught in general how to make home happy. He narrated cases where, in consequence of these teachings, the husband had been won from the alehouse to the pleasures of his own fireside, where the savory soups the wives had learned to make had weaned them from liquor: and made them into peace-abiding citizens.
He wrote of libraries and reading-rooms established for the poor, and also of societies for social pleasures, amusement, etc., to which all were invited to contribute their share.
"I accompanied a friend," he wrote, "to one of these gatherings,
which reminded me of a description Annie Asbury gave me of one of
yours. The ball accommodated about five hundred, and was as full
as was comfortable. Fathers and mothers, and not a few grandparents,
were there, with youth not under fourteen. Entertainments for the