to their homely ways, and felt that it was worse than vain to try to effect a change.  But Helen’s strong sense, with the help of two or three good cries, had carried her safely through, and her humble home amid the hills was very dear to her now.  But she was Helen, as the mother had said; she was different from Katy, who might be lonely and homesick, sobbing herself to sleep in her patient sister’s arms, as she did on that first night in Canandaigua, which Helen remembered so well.

“It’s better, too, now, than when I came home,” Helen thought, as with her rich, scarlet fruit she went slowly to the house.  “Morris is here, and the new church, and if she likes she can teach in Sunday school, though maybe she will prefer going with Uncle Ephraim.  He will be pleased if she does,” and, pausing by the door, Helen looked across Fairy Pond in the direction of Silverton village, where the top of a slender spire was just visible—­the spire of St. John’s, built within the year, and mostly, as it was whispered, at the expense of Dr. Morris Grant, who, a zealous churchman himself, had labored successfully to instill into Helen’s mind some of his own peculiar views, as well as to awaken in Mrs. Lennox’s heart the professions which had lain dormant for as long a time as the little black-bound book had lain on the cupboard shelf, forgotten and unread.

How the doctor’s views were regarded by the deacon’s family we shall see, perhaps, by and by.  At present our story has to do with Helen, holding her bowl of berries by the rear door and looking across the distant fields.  With one last glance at the object of her thoughts she re-entered the house, where her mother was arranging the square table for dinner, bringing out the white stone china instead of the mulberry set kept for everyday use.

“We ought to have had some silver forks before Katy came home,” she said, despondingly, as she laid by each plate the three-lined forks of steel, to pay for which Helen and Katy had picked huckleberries on the hills and dried apples from the orchard.

“Never mind, mother,” Helen answered, cheerily; “if Katy is as she used to be, she will care more for us than for silver forks, and I guess she is, for I imagine it would take a great deal to make her anything but a warmhearted, merry little creature.”

This was sensible Helen’s tribute of affection to the little, gay, chattering butterfly, at that moment an occupant of Uncle Ephraim’s corn-colored wagon, and riding with that worthy toward home, throwing kisses to every barefoot boy and girl she met, and screaming with delight as the old familiar waymarks met her view.

“There are the oxen, the darling oxen, and that’s Aunt Betsy, with her dress pinned up as usual,” she cried, when at last the wagon stopped before the door; and the four women stepped hurriedly out to meet her, almost smothering her with caresses, and then holding her off to see if she had changed.