“No, I’ve quit,” replied Henry.  “I’ve quit begging where I don’t get any alms; but as for you, if you get anything that satisfies your soul, for God’s sake hold on to it, Eunice, and don’t let it go.”  Then he pulled her bonneted head down and kissed her thin lips, with a kind of tenderness which was surprising.  “You’ve been a good wife, Eunice,” he said.

Eunice laid her hand on his shoulder and looked at him a second.  She was almost frightened.  Outward evidences of affection had not been frequent between them of late years, or indeed ever.  They were New-Englanders to the marrow of their bones.  Anything like an outburst of feeling or sentiment, unless in case of death or disaster, seemed abnormal.  Henry realized his wife’s feeling, and he smiled up at her.

“We are getting to be old folks,” he said, “and we’ve had more bitter than sweet in life, and we have neither of us ever said much as to how we felt to each other, but—­I never loved you as much as I love you now, Eunice, and I’ve taken it into my head to say it.”

Eunice’s lips quivered a little and her eyes reddened.  “There ain’t a woman in Amity who has had so good a husband as I have all these years, if you don’t go to meeting,” she replied.  Then she added, after a second’s pause:  “I didn’t know as you did feel just as you used to, Henry.  I didn’t know as any man did.  I know I’ve lost my looks, and—­”

“I can seem to see your looks, brighter than ever they were, in your heart,” said Henry.  He colored himself a little at his own sentiment.  Then he pulled her face down to his again and gave her a second kiss.  “Now run along to your meeting,” he said.  “Have you got enough on?  The wind sounds cold.”

“Yes,” replied Eunice.  “This cape’s real thick.  I put a new lining in it this winter, you know, and, besides, I’ve got my crocheted jacket under it.  I’m as warm as toast.”

Eunice, after she had gone out in the keen night air with her sister-in-law and her niece, reflected with more uneasiness than pleasure upon her husband’s unwonted behavior.

“Does it seem to you that Henry looks well lately?” she asked the elder Maria, as they hurried along.

“Yes; why not?” returned Maria.

“I don’t know.  It seems to me he’s been losing flesh.”

“Nonsense!” said Maria.  “I never saw him looking better than he does now.  I was thinking only this morning that he was making a better, healthier old man than he was as a young man.  But I do wish he would go to meeting.  I don’t think his mind is right about some things.  Suppose folks do have troubles.  They ought to be led to the Lord by them, instead of pulling back.  Henry hasn’t had anything more to worry him, nor half as much, as most men.  He don’t take things right.  He ought to go to meeting.”

“I guess he’s just as good as a good many who do go to meeting,” returned Eunice, with unwonted spirit.

“I don’t feel competent to judge as to that,” replied Maria, with a tone of aggravating superiority.  Then she added, “’By their works ye shall know them.’”