out of the very fulness and joy of her heart.  She was more than ever the very apple of her father’s eye; her mother gave her both her own share of love, and that of the dead child who had died in infancy.  I have heard cousin Holman murmur, after a long dreamy look at Phillis, and tell herself how like she was growing to Johnnie, and soothe herself with plaintive inarticulate sounds, and many gentle shakes of the head, for the aching sense of loss she would never get over in this world.  The old servants about the place had the dumb loyal attachment to the child of the land, common to most agricultural labourers; not often stirred into activity or expression.  My cousin Phillis was like a rose that had come to full bloom on the sunny side of a lonely house, sheltered from storms.  I have read in some book of poetry,—­

A maid whom there were none to praise, And very few to love.

And somehow those lines always reminded me of Phillis; yet they were not true of her either.  I never heard her praised; and out of her own household there were very few to love her; but though no one spoke out their approbation, she always did right in her parents’ eyes out of her natural simple goodness and wisdom.  Holdsworth’s name was never mentioned between us when we were alone; but I had sent on his letters to the minister, as I have said; and more than once he began to talk about our absent friend, when he was smoking his pipe after the day’s work was done.  Then Phillis hung her head a little over her work, and listened in silence.

’I miss him more than I thought for; no offence to you, Paul.  I said once his company was like dram-drinking; that was before I knew him; and perhaps I spoke in a spirit of judgment.  To some men’s minds everything presents itself strongly, and they speak accordingly; and so did he.  And I thought in my vanity of censorship that his were not true and sober words; they would not have been if I had used them, but they were so to a man of his class of perceptions.  I thought of the measure with which I had been meting to him when Brother Robinson was here last Thursday, and told me that a poor little quotation I was making from the Georgics savoured of vain babbling and profane heathenism.  He went so far as to say that by learning other languages than our own, we were flying in the face of the Lord’s purpose when He had said, at the building of the Tower of Babel, that He would confound their languages so that they should not understand each other’s speech.  As Brother Robinson was to me, so was I to the quick wits, bright senses, and ready words of Holdsworth.’