408 HOPES AND FEARS. 



threatening symptoms ; and she looked all childish bloom as 

 well as beauty on that December morning, when she and Dolly, 

 standing at the door of their new abode, watched through their 

 tears and through the driving snow the departure for London 

 of myself and Caleb. In a few weeks I was broke in thoroughly 

 to the career of monotonous drudgery which a few years since 

 only ended. I brought to my daily tasks, repugnant as they 

 were both to the desultory habits and the country tastes formed 

 in my recent home, the energy of fifteen, quickened by a sense 

 of what I owed to my struggling parent and his needy family ; 

 and times there were, when this, the early morning of my day 

 of clerkship, was cheered (spite of other and more dark anti- 

 cipations) by rays of hopeful sunshine more properly by a 

 sunny haze, wherein, amidst other objects dimly discernible, 

 the fairy form of my little cousin was always most distinct. I 

 saw her again on the Easter following the December that we 

 parted, my first holiday from business, when my father allowed 

 me to pay a few days' visit to Dolly's cottage. 



Did I return with renovated hope or fears confirmed ? per- 

 haps with hope, for I applied myself to work more steadily 

 than ever. 



On the same anniversary the cheerful spring-time of the 

 following year on a Saturday, when the church was open 

 the church with the ivied pulpit two persons were seen 

 loitering under it, and looking up at its still green, evergreen 

 canopy. They were an aged woman of comely figure and mild 



