Miss Hepsy actually smiled.  “I never saw sech a cretur,” she said.  “Ye’d move the very Peak wi’ them eyes o’ your’n.  I’m real sorry for Mr. George Keane, anyway.  Well, have yer own way, and go off home.  You’re only hinderin’ my work, and I hain’t a minute to lose.”

“Thank you, Miss Hepsy,” said Carrie, with a very eloquent glance of her irresistible eyes.—­“Now, Lucy,” said she then, turning to the child, “come down to the parsonage on Monday morning at eleven, you and Tom, and we will go up to the Red House together.  Good-bye, dear; the fresh air up the Peak will brighten that white face, I hope.  Don’t forget, now.”

“Forget!  O Miss Carrie,” was all she said, but her eyes were very dim as she returned her kiss.  Lucy had been feeling peculiarly sad and down-hearted, and Miss Goldthwaite had come and brought with her the sunshine which seemed to follow her everywhere.

Then Carrie bade Miss Hepsy good-bye, and went away.  Looking about her as she went through the garden, she espied Tom painting waggon wheels in the yard.  A few steps took her to the boy’s side, and he looked up with a glad smile of surprise.

“Busy too, Tom,” she said pleasantly.  “I don’t think this place should be called Thankful Rest.  Nobody seems to take a rest here.  How do you like this work?”

“Don’t ask me, Miss Goldthwaite,” said the lad.  “You remember you told me to make the best of it; but it isn’t easy.”

“It will grow easy by-and-by,” she said, and laid her hand a moment on his arm, and her beautiful eyes grew grave and earnest.  “Does my soldier find his Captain able to help even in dark hours?”

“Yes, Miss Goldthwaite.”  That was all, but it was said so simply and earnestly that Carrie’s heart grew glad.

“We are to have a picnic up the Peak on Monday in Judge Keane’s waggon,” said she after a moment.  “Your aunt has promised to let you and Lucy come.  Will you like it?”

“Like it!  Up the Peak!  O Miss Goldthwaite,” said the boy, looking away to the towering hill beyond, “I have wished I could go every day since I came.  How good you are to Lucy and me!”

“She will tell you when to be ready.  In the meantime I must go,” said Miss Goldthwaite with her pleasant smile.  “Good-bye, and success to the waggon-painting.”

VIII.

Up the peak.

Tom and Lucy Hurst peered anxiously out of their chamber windows at six o’clock on Monday morning to see a clear, calm, beautiful sky, with a faint roseate flush in the east, where, by-and-by, the sun would come up brilliantly.  Aunt Hepsy was as cross as two sticks, and Uncle Josh morose and taciturn; but even these things failed to damp their spirits, and at a quarter to eleven they set off, a very happy pair, across the meadow to the parsonage.  Both looked well.  Lucy’s mourning, though simple and inexpensive, was wonderfully becoming; and some