There was some truth in Mrs. Baxter’s feeling.  Mrs. Buzzell, for instance, had three sons; Maria Sharp was absorbed in her lame father and her Sunday-school work; and Lobelia Brewster would not have considered matrimony a blessing, even under the most favourable conditions.  But Nancy was framed and planned for other things, and ’Zekiel was an insufficient channel for her soft, womanly sympathy and her bright activity of mind and body.

’Zekiel had lost his tail in a mowing-machine; ’Zekiel had the asthma, and the immersion of his nose in milk made him sneeze, so he was wont to slip his paw in and out of the dish and lick it patiently for five minutes together.  Nancy often watched him pityingly, giving him kind and gentle words to sustain his fainting spirit, but to-night she paid no heed to him, although he sneezed violently to attract her attention.

She had put her supper on the lighted table by the kitchen window and was pouring out her cup of tea, when a boy rapped at the door.  “Here’s a paper and a letter, Miss Wentworth,” he said.  “It’s the second this week, and they think over to the store that that Berwick widower must be settin’ up and takin’ notice!”

She had indeed received a letter the day before, an unsigned communication, consisting only of the words, “Second Epistle of John.  Verse 12.”

She had taken her Bible to look out the reference and found it to be:—­

“Having many things to write unto you, I would not write with paper and ink; but I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face, that our joy may be full.”

The envelope was postmarked New York, and she smiled, thinking that Mrs. Emerson, a charming lady who had spent the summer in Edgewood, and had sung with her in the village choir, was coming back, as she had promised, to have a sleigh ride and see Edgewood in its winter dress.  Nancy had almost forgotten the first letter in the excitements of her busy day, and now here was another, from Boston this time.  She opened the envelope and found again only a single sentence, printed, not written. (Lest she should guess the hand, she wondered?)

“Second Epistle of John.  Verse 5.”

“And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another.”

Was it Mrs. Emerson?  Could it be—­any one else?  Was it—?  No, it might have been, years ago; but not now; not now!—­And yet; he was always so different from other people; and once, in church, he had handed her the hymn-book with his finger pointing to a certain verse.

She always fancied that her secret fidelity of heart rose from the fact that Justin Peabody was “different.”  From the hour of their first acquaintance, she was ever comparing him with his companions, and always to his advantage.  So long as a woman finds all men very much alike (as Lobelia Brewster did, save that she allowed some to be worse!), she is in no danger.  But the moment in which she perceives and discriminates subtle differences, marvelling that there can be two opinions about a man’s superiority, that moment the miracle has happened.