The Winter was drawing to a close, when, late one evening, the sound of sleigh-bells was heard, and the crunching of snow beneath the hoofs of horses as they passed into the barn-yard gate.  The arrival of travelers was too common an occurrence to excite or disturb the well-ordered family.

Great logs were piled in the capacious chimney, and the flames blazed up with a crackling warmth, when two strangers entered.  In the younger Elizabeth instantly recognized John Estaugh, whose preaching had so deeply impressed her at eleven years of age.  This was almost like a glimpse of home—­her dear old English home.  She stepped forward with more than usual cordiality, saying: 

“Thou art welcome, Friend Estaugh, the more so for being entirely unexpected.”

“I am glad to see thee, Elizabeth,” he replied, with a friendly shake of the hand.  “It was not until after I landed in America that I heard the Lord had called thee here before me; but I remember thy father told me how often thou hadst played the settler in the woods when thou wast quite a little girl.”

“I am but a child still,” she replied, smiling.

“I trust thou art,” he rejoined; “and as for these strong impressions in childhood, I have heard of many cases where they seemed to be prophecies sent of the Lord.  When I saw thy father in London, I had even then an indistinct idea that I might sometime be sent to America on a religious visit.”

“And, hast thou forgotten, friend John, the ear of Indian corn which my father begged of thee for me?  I can show it to thee now.  Since then I have seen this grain in perfect growth, and a goodly plant it is, I assure thee.  See,” she continued, pointing to many bunches of ripe corn which hung in their braided husks against the walls of the ample kitchen, “all that, and more, came from a single ear no bigger than the one thou didst give my father.  May the seed sown by thy ministry be as fruitful!”

“Amen,” replied both the guests.

The next morning it was discovered that the snow had fallen during the night in heavy drifts, and the roads were impassable.  Elizabeth, according to her usual custom, sent out men, oxen, and sledges to open pathways for several poor families, and for households whose inmates were visited by illness.  In this duty John Estaugh and his friend joined heartily, and none of the laborers worked harder than they.  When he returned, glowing from this exercise, she could not but observe that the excellent youth had a goodly countenance.  It was not physical beauty; for of that he had but little.  It was that cheerful, child-like, out-beaming honesty of expression, which we not unfrequently see in Germans, who, above all nations, look as if they carried a crystal heart within their manly bosoms.

Two days after, when Elizabeth went to visit her patients, with a sled-load of medicines and provisions, John asked permission to accompany her.  There, by the bedside of the aged and the suffering, she saw the clear sincerity of his countenance warmed with rays of love, while he spoke to them words of kindness and consolation; and then she heard his pleasant voice modulate itself into deeper tenderness of expression, when he took little children in his arms.