KATIE STUART. 89 



what you thought this morning when the people came 

 near breaking down in the singing?" 



" Have you forgotten that Abraham Stewart was the 

 younger brother of old Deacon Stuart, who married my 

 aunt, and who always spelled his name with the u a ?" 



" No, I have not forgotten it. I have been thinking 

 of him this morning." 



" Yes ; but you did not know Katie, the darling Katie 

 of my happiest memories. You were a child when she 

 went away." 



Not so young as the Doctor thought, but I said noth- 

 ing, and he went on : 



" I was thinking of the deacon ; and when that little 

 break in the music occurred, I remembered how once 

 her voice, clear and heavenly, led them all, and when the 

 psalm was finished, I heard that voice floating away into 

 the deep, far sky. It went before her to God. Pure as 

 her own soul, which I sometimes think was won to heaven 

 by the returning melody of her own songs ! There is no 

 angel there with holier voice. I heard it this morning." 



I was silent for a little, thinking, " Shall I tell him how 

 well I remember that morning?" But I did not then, 

 and the subject came up again in the evening, as you 

 will learn. So I sat, and recalled a memory of the old 

 church which was very touching that morning in con- 

 nection with the death of farmer Stewart. Sixty years 

 ago there was a voice in the choir that thrilled his heart 

 every Sunday morning, so that he listened to it more 

 than to the words of the song. He was a stout, strong 

 man. and yet he was a child in the presence of that coun- 

 try maiden, and he loved her with exceeding love. He 

 served her father, not so long as Jacob for Leah, yet with 

 no less devotion, and for a while with no more success. 



