Widow, with flashing eyes.—­“I am sure, sir, I hope you will do no such thing; for I would not have Lenny beholden to them as has never given him a kind word sin’ he was born!”

The Parson smiled gravely and shook his head at poor Mrs. Fairfield’s hasty confutation of her own self-acquittal from the charge of pride; but he saw that it was not the time or moment for effectual peace-making in the most irritable of all rancors, viz., that nourished against one’s nearest relations.  He therefore dropped the subject, and said,—­“Well, time enough to think of Lenny’s future prospects; meanwhile we are forgetting the haymakers.  Come.”

The widow opened the back door, which led across a little apple orchard into the fields.

Parson.—­“You have a pleasant place here; and I see that my friend Lenny should be in no want of apples.  I had brought him one, but I have given it away on the road.”

Widow.—­“Oh, sir, it is not the deed—­it is the will; as I felt when the Squire, God bless him! took two pounds off the rent the year he-that is, Mark—­died.”

Parson.—­“If Lenny continues to be such a help to you, it will not be long before the Squire may put the two pounds on again.”

“Yes, sir,” said the widow simply; “I hope he will.”

“Silly woman!” muttered the Parson.  “That’s not exactly what the schoolmistress would have said.  You don’t read nor write, Mrs. Fairfield; yet you express yourself with great propriety.”

“You know Mark was a schollard, sir, like my poor, poor, sister; and though I was a sad stupid girl afore I married, I tried to take after him when we came together.”

* * * * *

CHAPTER IV.

They were now in the hayfield, and a boy of about sixteen, but, like most country lads, to appearance much younger than he was, looked up from his rake, with lively blue eyes, beaming forth under a profusion of brown curly hair.

Leonard Fairfield was indeed a very handsome boy—­not so stout nor so ruddy as one would choose for the ideal of rustic beauty; nor yet so delicate in limb and keen in expression as are those children of cities, in whom the mind is cultivated at the expense of the body; but still he had the health of the country in his cheeks, and was not without the grace of the city in his compact figure and easy movements.  There was in his physiognomy something interesting from its peculiar character of innocence and simplicity.  You could see that he had been brought up by a woman, and much apart from familiar contact with other children; and such intelligence as was yet developed in him, was not ripened by the jokes and cuffs of his coevals, but fostered by decorous lecturings from his elders, and good little boy maxims in good little boy books.

Parson.—­“Come hither, Lenny.  You know the benefit of school, I see:  it can teach you nothing better than to be a support to your mother.”