bility of an offer of marriage, from some one to her, lay all his hope of future friendship with the feminine portion of the family. He and they understood that he would not marry for several years, and perhaps the young lady would think the prefix of Dr. to her name would not pay for the procrastination of wedding cake and a house warming. At any rate Benny grew sanguine, and his spirits bubbled up and overflowed in contagious merriment. Somehow he seemed to feel certain of Mary Winthrop's regard for him, and never doubted that her future was pictured to her delicate fancies beside him. That they were to be together always, to his unquestioning heart, seemed inevitable, and very pleasant altogether. There were no words spoken, nor were there any needed, for she trusted him wholly and en-. tirely always.

CHAPTER VI.

"Build to-day, then, strong and sure,
With a firm and ample base;
And ascending and secure

Shall to-morrow find its place.
Thus alone can we attain

To those turrets, where the eye
Sees the world as one vast plain,

And one boundless reach of sky."

FEW women could have been thus satisfied, words are so precious to them. They hoard them and repeat them with their prayers-make their solitude musical-their monotonous lives changeable and beautiful with the remembrance of their utterance. A wife who had been loved for years with the tenderest and most unchangeable devotion said :—

"My heart craves audible expressions of affection. I could forget little irritations and small faults in my husband, with a setting of tender and affectionate words. My heart and ears crave the sound as they do sweet music, and their echoes make glad the most wearisome or painful hours."

Others crave nothing. They are conscious of their position, and feel with an unwavering conviction that they are enthroned, and require no earthly homage.

Such was Mary Winthrop.

heart!

Happy, unquestioning

She did not grow tearful at the parting, nor did her smile dim, though there was a pallor, slight, but still real to the eye of Benny Rollin, over her sweet face. She kept a Roman spirit hidden under a soft exterior, and felt courage to endure any thing for her beloved, with a woman's heroism and a Christian's resignation. She was a genuine Optimist. Thank God, all ye who are, for there be few who can in truth comfort themselves with the sweet balm, so faithless are too many natures.

"I watch her as she steals in some dull room

That brightens at her entrance-slow lets fall
A word or two of wise simplicity,

Then goes, and at her going, all seems dark.
Little she knows this; little thinks each brow
Lightens, each heart grows purer with her eyes;
Good, honest eyes-clear, upward, righteous eyes,
That look as if they saw the dim unseen,

And learned from thence their deep compassionate calm!"

"I shall miss you, Mary," said Benjamin Rollin, which sententious sentence was intended for a question, more than an assertion.

"I am sorry," she said with truthful and charming naiveté, "for it may retard your progress; you are so accustomed to mingle me with your books. There will be not a little strangeness for me in the new way, but my loss will be compensated to myself, by knowing how much you are learning to tell me on your return. I hope the world will look as beautiful to you as I fancy it to be, and that you will find many friends to love and care for you. Not that they will care for you as we do

who know you best, but for what you seem to every one-good, honest, and ambitious." That last word was emphasized slightly, and the listener felt it, and though he needed no especial stimulant, yet it was a tonic, whenever he felt weary, or loathed the details of his chosen profession.

And so they parted.

She with her reticent notion continued to live the past and future in the utter silence of her quiet life, doing the petty and wearisome duties of her isolated home, with ambition firing her veins and thoughts with a strange and quenchless flame, yet never letting an expression fall, of the fancies and purposes that glowed and vivified her whole being, except at long interims, when a partially confidential talk with her father would reveal the inner life of the half child, half woman.

With the people about her, mental torpor was a virtue. Physical torpor was the one unpardonable sin. A man's character was estimated and set down in the unwritten, though perpetually legendary, annals of his time, by the amount of work he could do. A woman who could keep house on the smallest means, and look tidy and happy under the burdens of her life, ask nothing and expect nothing of the pleasurable portion of existence, was a Christian of the highest feminine order. In fact, work and contentment were the cardinal virtues of the inhabitants of the Ridge.

Mary Winthrop understood this to be their peculiar fault, and endeavored to overcome the infatuation, though with but little success. The people were disposed to be shy of the Winthrops now, and not a little

envious, as they knew that they saw in their intelligent faces at least their equals.

"When a man is contented," says a modern preacher and reformer, "thoroughly contented, in the common acceptance of that questionable virtue, he is fit to be buried." No one should ever be content when there is a point still higher that he can reach-a point where any soul can look upward unabashed. Content is the bane of progress, the clog upon the feet of improvement. Never stop in attempting to gain any probable or possible good until the voice of the Inevitable says, "Hitherto, and no further."

Benjamin Rollin went to his labor that autumn, in the great city of Philadelphia, Mary Winthrop to her own home, with Sandy McLain and Peter Dally for evening pupils, while each had his duties, one in the household, one in the threshing barn, and poor Peter in the husking stack of Nelson Winthrop. The last had become. quite useful to himself, and a great comfort to his mother, whose blind love vailed her eyes to many of his deficiencies.

The Log School House seemed to have an inspiring genius perched in its rafters, for study was the rule and not the exception among the new and old pupils, and the master was very, very happy. Rhetorical exercises were introduced with not a little shyness on the part of the performers, but still with unexpected success.

A materialist would, without doubt, ascribe all this enthusiasm to the weather and the health of the students, but there was a more potent influence than atmospheric or physical power could produce.

There came to them in the beginning of winter a