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. 



