Mistake us not, reader, and bear with us if we attempt to analyze this look which characterized Mrs. Varley.  A rare diamond is worth stopping to glance at, even when one is in a hurry.  The brightest jewel in the human heart is worth a thought or two.  By a loving look we do not mean a look of love bestowed on a beloved object. That is common enough; and thankful should we be that it is so common in a world that’s overfull of hatred.  Still less do we mean that smile and look of intense affection with which some people—­good people too—­greet friend and foe alike, and by which effort to work out their beau ideal of the expression of Christian love they do signally damage their cause, by saddening the serious and repelling the gay.  Much less do we mean that perpetual smile of good-will which argues more of personal comfort and self-love than anything else.  No; the loving look we speak of is as often grave as gay.  Its character depends very much on the face through which it beams.  And it cannot be counterfeited.  Its ring defies imitation.  Like the clouded sun of April, it can pierce through tears of sorrow; like the noontide sun of summer, it can blaze in warm smiles; like the northern lights of winter, it can gleam in depths of woe;—­but it is always the same, modified, doubtless, and rendered more or less patent to others, according to the natural amiability of him or her who bestows it.  No one can put it on; still less can any one put it off.  Its range is universal; it embraces all mankind, though, of course, it is intensified on a few favoured objects; its seat is in the depths of a renewed heart, and its foundation lies in love to God.

Young Varley’s mother lived in a cottage which was of the smallest possible dimensions consistent with comfort.  It was made of logs, as, indeed, were all the other cottages in the valley.  The door was in the centre, and a passage from it to the back of the dwelling divided it into two rooms.  One of these was sub-divided by a thin partition, the inner room being Mrs. Varley’s bedroom, the outer Dick’s.  Daniel Hood’s dormitory was a corner of the kitchen, which apartment served also as a parlour.

The rooms were lighted by two windows, one on each side of the door, which gave to the house the appearance of having a nose and two eyes.  Houses of this kind have literally got a sort of expression on—­if we may use the word—­their countenances. Square windows give the appearance of easy-going placidity; longish ones, that of surprise.  Mrs. Varley’s was a surprise cottage; and this was in keeping with the scene in which it stood, for the clear lake in front, studded with islands, and the distant hills beyond, composed a scene so surprisingly beautiful that it never failed to call forth an expression of astonished admiration from every new visitor to the Mustang Valley.

“My boy,” exclaimed Mrs. Varley, as her son entered the cottage with a bound, “why so hurried to-day?  Deary me! where got you the grand gun?”