distinct what sort of life I'd been livin' all the years I'd been a professor, when I couldn't hold on to my tongue and temper one day!"

"Breth-e-ren," interrupted a slow, harsh voice, broken by emotion, "I'll tell the rest out. Josiah Emmons came around like a man an' a Christian right there. He asked me for to forgive him, and not to think 'twas the fault of his religion, because 'twas his'n and nothing else. I think more of him to-day than I ever done before.

I was one that

rest of ye. I I'd ruther go to

wouldn't say I'd practice with the thought 'twas everlasting nonsense. forty-nine prayer meetin's than work at bein' good a week. I believe my hope has been one of them that perish; it hain't worked, and I leave it behind today; I mean to begin honest, and it was seein' one honest Christian man fetched me 'round to it."

Amos Tucker sat down. "Bless the Lord," said a still older man, and many a glistening eye gave silent response.

"Well," said Brother Emmons, "when the next day came I got up to make the fire, and my boy Joe had forgot the kindlin's; I'd opened my mouth to give him Jesse, when it came over me sudden that this was the day of prayer for the family relation. I thought I wouldn't say nothin'. I just fetched the kindlin's myself, and when the fire burnt good, I called my wife.

"Dear me,' she said, 'I've got such a headache, 'Siah, but I'll come in a minnit.'

"I didn't mind that, for women are always havin'

aches, and I was jest a-goin' to say so when I remembered the tex' about not bein' bitter against 'em, so I says, 'Philury, you lay a-bed. I expect Emmy and me can get the vittles to-day.' I declare, she turned over and gave me such a look! Why, it struck right in! There was my wife that had worked for an' waited on me twenty odd years 'most scart because I spoke kind of feelin' to her. I went out an' fetched in the pail of water she'd always drawed herself, and then I milked the cow. When I came in Philury was up fryin' potatoes, and tears a-shinin' on her white face. She didn't say nothin'; I felt a leetle meaner'n I did the day before. But 'twan't nothin' to my condition when I was goin', toward night, down the suller stairs for some apples, so's the children could have a roast, and I heerd Joe, up in the kitchen, say to Emmy:

"I do believe, Em, Pa's goin' to die.' "Why, how you talk!'

"Well, I do; he's so everlastin' pleasant and goodnatered I can't but think he's struck with death.'

"I tell you, brethren, I set right down on them suller-stairs and cried. I did, reely. Seemed as though the Lord had turned and looked at me jest as He did at Peter. Why, there was my own children never see me act real fatherly and pretty in all their lives. I'd growled and scolded and prayed at 'em, and tried to fetch 'em up--jest as the twig is bent the tree's inclined, you know-but I hadn't never thought that they'd got right and reason to expect I'd do my part as well as they they'rn. Seemed

as though I was findin' out more about Josiah Emmons' short-comings than was agreeable.

I

"Come around Friday I got back to the store. began to think 'twas gettin' easy to practice after five days, when in come Judge Herrick's wife after some curtin calico. I had a handsome piece, all done off with roses and things, but there was a fault in the weavin'-every now and then a thin streak. She didn't notice it, but she was pleased with the figures on't, and said she'd take the whole piece. As I was wrappin' of it up, what Mr. Parkes here said about tryin' to act jest as the Lord would in our place came acrost me. There was I, a door-keeper in the tents of my God, as David says, really cheatin', and cheatin' a woman.

"Mis' Herrick,' says I, 'I don't b'lieve you looked real close at this goods-'taint thorough wove. So she didn't take it; but what fetched me was to think how many times I'd done such onreliable little things to turn a penny, and all the time sayin' and prayin' that I wanted to be like Christ. I kept a-trippin' up all day jest in the ordinary business, and I was a peg lower down when night came than I was a Thursday.

"I'd ruther lay a mile of four-foot stone wall than undertake to do a man's livin' Christian duty for twelve workin' hours, and the heft of that is, it's because I aint used to it and I ought to be.

"This mornin' came around, and I felt a mite more cherk. 'Twas missionary mornin' and seemed as if 'twas a sight easier to preach than practice. I

thought I'd begin to old Mis' Vedders. So I put a Testament in my pocket and knocked to her door. Says I: Good-mornin', ma'am,' and then I stopped. Words seemed to hang. I hemmed and swallered a little, and, finally, I said: 'We don't see you to meetin' very frequent, Mis' Vedders.'

"No, you don't,' sez she. 'I stay to home and mind my business.'

"Well, we should like to have you come along with us and do ye good,' says I.

"Look a here, deacon!' she snapped, 'I've lived alongside of you fifteen years, and you knowed 1 never went to meetin'. We aint a pious lot, and you knowed it. We're poor'n death, and uglier'n sin. Jim drinks and swears, and Malviny dono her let ters. She knows a heap she hadn't ought to, be sides. Now, what you comin' here to-day for, and talkin' so glib about meetin'. Go to meetin'! I'll go an' come jest as I please, for all you. Now, get out of this.'

"Why, she come at me with a broomstick. There wasn't no need on't. What she said was enough. I hadn't never asked her or hern to so much as think of goodness before.

"Then I went to another place there was ten children in rags an' the man half drunk. He giv' it to me, too, and I don't wonder. I'd said considerable about the heathen in foreign parts, and give some little for to convert them, and I had looked right over the heads of them that was next door. Seemed as if I could hear Him say, 'These ought

ye to have done, and not left the other undone.' I couldn't face another soul. I came home, and here I be. I've searched me through and through. God be merciful to me, a sinner."

He dropped into his seat and bowed his head, and many another bent, also. It was plain that the deacon's experience was not the only one among the brethren. Mr. Payson rose and prayed as he had never prayed before-the week of practice had fired his heart. And it began a memorable year for the church in Sugar Hollow. Not a year of excitement or enthusiasm, but one when they heard their Lord saying, as to Israel of old, "Go forward." And they obeyed His voice.

ROSE TERRY COOKE.

HILDA'S LITTLE HOOD.

Permission of Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. Contributed by John H. Bechtel, Philadelphia.

IN

sooth I have forgotten, for it is long ago,

And winters twelve have hid it beneath their shrouds of snow;

And 'tisn't well, the parson says, o'er bygone things

to brood,

But, sure, it was the strangest tale, this tale of Hilda's hood.

For Hilda was a merry maid, and wild as wild could

be,

Among the parish maidens was none so fair as she;