of the improvements that had been made in Roselle during their absence, describing to them their new church, telling his daughter that the ladies, by their united efforts, had furnished it. "They are trying to get a communion set. Sister Radford informed me of this, in her last letter. I read it to a few of our sisters, and they resolved to aid them by sending those that we have formerly used; they cost about forty dollars, and are none the worse for being used. I have also a set of cords and tassels for the curtains. Two of our good sisters called on me the morning before I left B., and handed me fifteen dollars to assist you in getting your lamps."

Tears of gratitude filled the father's eyes.

"Thank you, my daughter; you have found it more blessed to give than

to receive."

They were now within a half hour's drive of Roselle. Every object was becoming familiar to Charles and Amelia; the mountains, hills, groves, valley, meadows, and green pastures reminded them of other days.

"Do look, Charles, and see that field of green corn yonder; it looks just as it did when we left here eleven years ago; and look on that side hill too, see that flock of sheep. I should think for all the world that it was the same flock that I used to help Julia Mason drive into the yard when I was a little girl, and that black-cherry tree -I have climbed to the top of it hundreds of times, and that old butter-nut tree, too, that stands by it, I have gathered butter-nuts there till my hands were as black as a chimney-sweep's."

They had now reached the top of the hill that overlooked the entire village, and halted a moment that they

might gaze undisturbed upon the Eden

of their childhood. The air was exhilarating to the weary travellers, for they had long been pent up in a dense city, and the ministerial duties of the young Mr. Bradley had been too numerous to admit of spending his summers in the country, as is the usual custom of the city clergy. The cause of Christ lay too near his heart for him to indulge in inglorious ease, while the lambs of his flock required his unceasing attention.

CHAPTER V.

BLIGHTED HOPE.

"The gloomy future bears

No promise for to-morrow;
The taste of bitter tears

Is the sole bread of sorrow."- Ellis Lewis.

How different were the feelings of the Bradley party, as they descended the long hill that introduced them to one of the loveliest villages in New England, from those of the unhappy Willard, from whom they had been separated for a few hours. They had found the ways of virtue the ways of pleasantness, that all her paths were paths of peace; and their minds were as free from clouds as the etherial arch above them, and as pure as the light that was poured from the silver lamps with which it was adorned.

They had ridden some distance in silence, each having a world within themselves, in which they were busily engaged. Amelia, aroused from a holy reverie, repeated:

"When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers; the moon and stars which thou hast ordained, what is man, that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou visitest him."

Charles continued, "Who coverest thyself with light, as with a garment; who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain; who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters; who maketh the clouds his chariot; who walketh upon the wings of the wind; who maketh his angels spirits, his ministers a flaming fire; who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever."

There had a holy admiration diffused