Your virtuoso looks with artistical delight on the figure of some nymph painted on an Etruscan vase, engaged in pouring out the juice of the grape from her classic urn.  And the Parson felt as harmless, if not as elegant a pleasure in contemplating Widow Fairfield brimming high a glittering can, which she designed for the refreshment of the thirsty hay-makers.

Mrs. Fairfield was a middle-aged tidy woman, with that alert precision of movement which seems to come from an active orderly mind; and as she now turned her head briskly at the sound of the Parson’s footsteps, she showed a countenance prepossessing, though not handsome,—­a countenance from which a pleasant hearty smile, breaking forth at that moment, effaced some lines that, in repose, spoke “of sorrows, but of sorrows past;” and her cheek, paler than is common to the complexions even of the fair sex, when born and bred amidst a rural population, might have favored the guess that the earlier part of her life had been spent in the languid air and “within doors” occupation of a town.

“Never mind me,” said the Parson, as Mrs. Fairfield dropped her quick courtesy, and smoothed her apron; “if you are going into the hayfield, I will go with you; I have something to say to Lenny—­an excellent boy.”

Widow.—­“Well, sir, and you are kind to say it—­but so he is.”

Parson.-"He reads uncommonly well, he writes tolerably; he is the best lad in the whole school at his catechism and in the Bible lessons; and I assure you, when I see his face at church, looking up so attentively, I fancy that I shall read my sermon all the better for such a listener!”

Widow, wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron.—­“Deed, sir, when my poor Mark died, I never thought I could have lived on as I have done.  But that boy is so kind and good, that when I look at him sitting there in dear Mark’s chair, and remember how Mark loved him, and all he used to say to me about him, I feel somehow or other as if my goodman smiled on me, and would rather I was not with him yet, till the lad had grown up, and did not want me any more.”

Parson, looking away, and after a pause.—­“You never hear anything of the old folks at Lansmere?”

“‘Deed, sir, sin’ poor Mark died, they han’t noticed me, nor the boy; but,” added the widow, with all a peasant’s pride, “it isn’t that I wants their money; only it’s hard to feel strange like to one’s own father and mother!”

Parson.—­“You must excuse them.  Your father, Mr. Avenel, was never quite the same man after that sad event,—­but you are weeping, my friend, pardon me:—­your mother is a little proud; but so are you, though in another way.”

Widow.—­“I proud!  Lord love ye, sir, I have not a bit of pride in me! and that’s the reason they always looked down on me.”

Parson.—­“Your parents must be well off; and I shall apply to them in a year or two in behalf of Lenny, for they promised me to provide for him when he grew up, as they ought.”