“Elder!  Elder! here’s a letter we was a bringin’ up to you!” called out both of the men at once as he passed them like a flash, saying hurriedly “Good evening! good evening!” and was many steps down the hill beyond them before he could stop.

“Oh, thank you!” he said, taking it hastily and dropping it into his pocket.  “Mrs. Williams is dying, they say; I cannot stop a minute,” and he was out of sight while the baffled parishioners stood confounded at their ill-luck.

“Now jest as like’s not we shan’t never know what was in that letter,” said.  Eben Hill, disconsolately.  “Ef we’d ha’gone in and set down while he read it, we sh’d ha’ had some chance.”

“But then he mightn’t ha’ read it while we was there,” replied Joseph Bailey resignedly; an’ I expect It ain’t none o’ our business anyhow, one way or t’other.”

“It’s the queerest thing’s ever happened in this town,” persisted Eben; “what’s a girl—­that is, if ‘tis a girl—­got to do writin’ to a minister she don’t know?  I don’t believe it’s any good she’s after.”

“Wal, ef she is, she’s come to the right place; and there’s no knowin’ but that the Lord’s guided her, Eben; for ef ever there was a man sent on this airth to do the Lord’s odd jobs o’ looking arter folks, it’s Elder Kinney,” said Joseph.

“That’s so,” answered Eben in a dismal tone, “that’s so; but he’s dreadful close-mouthed when he’s a mind to be.  You can’t deny that!”

“Wal, I dunno’s I want ter deny it,” said Joseph, who was beginning, in Eben’s company, to grow ashamed of curiosity; “I dunno’s it’s anything agin him,” and so the men parted.

It was late at night when Elder Kinney went home from the bedside of the dying woman.  He had forgotten all about the letter.  When he undressed, it fell from his pocket, and lay on the floor.  It was the first thing he saw in the morning.  “I declare!” said the Elder, and reaching out a long arm from the bed, he picked it up.

The bright winter sun was streaming in on the Elder’s face as he read Draxy’s letter.  He let it fall on the scarlet and white counterpane, and lay thinking.  The letter touched him unspeakably.  Elder Kinney was no common man; he had a sensitive organization and a magnetic power, which, if he had had the advantages of education and position, would have made him a distinguished preacher.  As a man, he was tender, chivalrous, and impulsive; and even the rough, cold, undemonstrative people among whom his life had been spent had, without suspecting it, almost a romantic affection for him.  He had buried his young wife and her first-born still-born child together in this little village twelve years before, and had ever since lived in the same house from which they had been carried to the grave-yard.  “If you ever want any other man to preach to you,” he said to the people, “you’ve only to say so to the Conference.  I don’t want to preach one sermon too many to you.  But I shall live and die in this house; I can’t ever go away.  I can get a good livin’ at farmin’—­good as preachin’, any day!”