believe that the worst was over, and was not so very bad after all.  But the succeeding days were very miserable.  Sometimes I thought it must be my fancy that falsely represented Phillis to me as strangely changed, for surely, if this idea of mine was well-founded, her parents—­her father and mother—­her own flesh and blood—­would have been the first to perceive it.  Yet they went on in their household peace and content; if anything, a little more cheerfully than usual, for the ‘harvest of the first-fruits’, as the minister called it, had been more bounteous than usual, and there was plenty all around in which the humblest labourer was made to share.  After the one thunderstorm, came one or two lovely serene summer days, during which the hay was all carried; and then succeeded long soft rains filling the ears of corn, and causing the mown grass to spring afresh.  The minister allowed himself a few more hours of relaxation and home enjoyment than usual during this wet spell:  hard earth-bound frost was his winter holiday; these wet days, after the hay harvest, his summer holiday.  We sate with open windows, the fragrance and the freshness called out by the soft-falling rain filling the house-place; while the quiet ceaseless patter among the leaves outside ought to have had the same lulling effect as all other gentle perpetual sounds, such as mill-wheels and bubbling springs, have on the nerves of happy people.  But two of us were not happy.  I was sure enough of myself, for one.  I was worse than sure,—­I was wretchedly anxious about Phillis.  Ever since that day of the thunderstorm there had been a new, sharp, discordant sound to me in her voice, a sort of jangle in her tone; and her restless eyes had no quietness in them; and her colour came and went without a cause that I could find out.  The minister, happy in ignorance of what most concerned him, brought out his books; his learned volumes and classics.  Whether he read and talked to Phillis, or to me, I do not know; but feeling by instinct that she was not, could not be, attending to the peaceful details, so strange and foreign to the turmoil in her heart, I forced myself to listen, and if possible to understand.

‘Look here!’ said the minister, tapping the old vellum-bound book he held; ’in the first Georgic he speaks of rolling and irrigation, a little further on he insists on choice of the best seed, and advises us to keep the drains clear.  Again, no Scotch farmer could give shrewder advice than to cut light meadows while the dew is on, even though it involve night-work.  It is all living truth in these days.’  He began beating time with a ruler upon his knee, to some Latin lines he read aloud just then.  I suppose the monotonous chant irritated Phillis to some irregular energy, for I remember the quick knotting and breaking of the thread with which she was sewing.  I never hear that snap repeated now, without suspecting some sting or stab troubling the heart of the worker.  Cousin Holman, at her peaceful knitting, noticed the reason why Phillis had so constantly to interrupt the progress of her seam.