VISITORS' DAY AT THE WALLENCAMP SCHOOL-HOUSE.
The Sunday-school had risen to its feet and was slowly droning "Yield not to temptation," etc. The situation was odd enough. Mr. Rollin's repressed laughing voice was in my ear: "Will you yield?" and I yielded.
At the close of the Sunday-school, as we were going out of the church, I told Grandma that I should drive home with Emily's fisherman.
She drew me gravely to one side. "We shall be very sorry to lose your company, teacher," she said; "only we hadn't ought to lose no precious opportunity, and I do hope as you'll labor for that young man's soul." I felt hopelessly conscience-stricken.
We drove home through "Lost Cedars"—a good many miles out of the ordinary course—and I was cheerfully consenting to the divergence.
Wild and tenantless, in the midst of a wild and tenantless landscape, Lost Cedars wore that air of lovely, though utter, desolation which might easily have suggested its name.
There was a still unfrozen lake, which the setting sun, more like the sun of an Italian winter than of rugged New England, was painting in gorgeous colors, when we reached the place.
"We come fishing here, sometimes," said Mr. Rollin; "I keep a little boat down there under the bush, and I happen to have the key of the boat here in my pocket. It looks awfully tempting, doesn't it?"
I had always been passionately fond of out-door life, and prided myself in having acquired no little skill at the oar. We were out on the painted lake, and I was rowing the light boat, and taking much selfish enjoyment out of the scene around me, when I became conscious that the fisherman was leaning far forward from his seat in the boat, addressing me in a low tone.
"To discuss a topic appropriate to the day, Miss Hungerford: I suppose you've read about that fellow who was looking for the pearl of great price, haven't you?—that is, as I take it, you know, it was something that was going to be of more value to him than anything else in the world,—well, now, I believe that every man thinks he's going to be lucky enough to fall in with something of that sort some day, don't you?"