“All that you say is very true, Kitty,” I replied; “but Providence has sent you friends to take care that no wrong shall be done your grandmother, or yourself.”

“You’re right enough in that, Miles,” put in the mate.  “God bless the old lady; she shall never sleep out of the house, with my consent, unless it is when she sails down the river to go to the theatre, and the museum, the ten or fifteen Dutch churches there are in town, and all them ‘ere sort o’ thingumerees.”

Kitty gazed at her left-hand neighbour with surprise, but I could feel that maiden bashfulness induced her to press less closely to my side than she had done the minute before.

“I don’t understand you,” Kitty answered, after a short pause, during which she was doubtless endeavouring to comprehend what she had heard.  “Grandmother has no wish to go to town; she only wants to pass the rest of her days, quietly, at the old place, and one church is enough for anybody.”

Had the little girl lived a few years later, she would have ascertained that some persons require half-a-dozen.

“And you, Kitty, do you suppose your grandmother has no thought for you, when she shall be called away herself?

“Oh! yes—­I know she thinks a good deal of that, but I try to set her heart at ease, poor, dear, old grandmother, for it’s of no use to be distressing herself about me!  I can take care of myself well enough, and have plenty of friends who will never see me want.  Father’s sisters say they’ll take care of me.”

“You have one friend, Kitty, of whom you little think, just now, and he will provide for you.”

“I don’t know whom you mean, sir—­unless—­and yet you can’t suppose I never think of God, sir?”

“I mean a friend on earth—­have you no friend on earth, whom you have not mentioned yet?”

“I am not sure—­perhaps—­you do not mean Horace Bright, do you, sir?”

This was said with a bright blush, and a look in which the dawning consciousness of maiden shame was so singuarly blended with almost childish innocence, as both to delight me, and yet cause me to smile.

“And who is Horace Bright?” I asked, assuming as grave an air as possible.

“Oh!  Horace is nobody—­only the son of one of our neighbours.  There, don’t you see the old stone house that stands among the apple and cherry trees, on the banks of the river, just here in a line with this barn?”

“Quite plainly; and a very pretty place it is.  We were admiring it as we drove up the road.”

“Well, that is Horace Bright’s father’s; and one of the best farms in the neighbourhood.  But you mustn’t mind what he says, grandmother always tells me; boys love to talk grandly, and all the folks about here feel for us, though most of them are afraid of ’Squire Van Tassel, too.”

“I place no reliance at all on Horace’s talk—­not I. It is just as your grandmother tells you; boys are fond of making a parade, and often utter things they don’t mean.”