Has the voice spoken yet to thee that speakest
to me day and night, ' Marry Lois?'"

She started and turned a little sick, but spoke
almost directly in a brave, clear manner:

"No! cousin Manasseh. And it never will."

"Then I must wait yet longer," he replied,
hoarsely, as if to himself. " But all submission
—all submission."

At last a break came upon the monotony of
the long, dark winter. The parishioners once
more raised the discussion of whether—the
parish extending as it did—it was not
absolutely necessary for Pastor Tappau to have
help. This question had been mooted once
before; and then Pastor Tappau had acquiesced
in the necessity, and all had gone on smoothly
for some months after the appointment of his
assistant, until a feeling had sprung up on the
part of the elder minister, which might have
been called jealousy of the younger, if so godly
a man as Pastor Tappau could have been
supposed  to entertain so evil a passion. However
that might be, two parties were speedily formed,
the younger and more ardent being in favour of
Mr. Nolan, the elder and more persistent—and,
at the time, the more numerous—clinging
to the old grey-headed, dogmatic Mr. Tappau,
who had married them, baptised their children,
and was to them literally as a "pillar of the
church."  So Mr. Nolan left Salem, carrying
away with him, possibly, more hearts than that
of Faith Hickson's; but certainly she had never
been the same creature since.

But now—Christmas, 1691—one or two of
the older members of the congregation being
dead, and some who were younger men having
come to settle in Salem—Mr. Tappau being also
older, and, some charitably supposed, wiser—a
fresh effort had been made, and Mr. Nolan was
returning to labour in ground apparently
smoothed over. Lois had taken a keen interest
in all the proceedings for Faith's sake, far
more than the latter did for herself, as any
spectator would have said. Faith's wheel never
went faster or slower, her thread never broke,
her colour never came, her eyes were never
uplifted with sudden interest all the time these
discussions respecting Mr. Nolan's return were
going on. But Lois, after the hint given by
Prudence, had found a clue to many a sigh and
look of despairing sorrow, even without the help
of Nattee's improvised songs, in which, under
strange allegories, the helpless love of her
favourite was told to ears heedless of all meaning,
with the exception of those of the tender-
hearted and sympathetic Lois. Occasionally she
heard a strange chant of the old Indian woman's
—half in her own language, half in broken English
—droned over some simmering pipkin, from
which the smell was, to say the least, unearthly.
Once, on perceiving this odour in the keeping-
room, Grace Hickson suddenly exclaimed,

"Nattee is at her heathen ways again; we
shall have some mischief unless she is stayed."

But Faith, moving quicker than ordinary,
said something about putting a stop to it, and
so forestalled her mother's evident intention of
going into the kitchen. Faith shut the door
between the two rooms, and entered upon some
remonstrance with Nattee; but no one could
hear the words used. Faith and Nattee seemed
more bound together by love and common
interest than any other two among the self-
contained individuals comprising this household.
Lois sometimes felt as if her presence as a
third interrupted some confidential talk between
her cousin and the old servant. And yet she
was fond of Faith, and could almost think that
Faith liked her more than she did either mother,
brother or sister; for the first two were
indifferent as to any unspoken feelings, while
Prudence delighted in discovering them only to
make an amusement to herself out of them.

One day Lois was sitting by herself at her
sewing-table, while Faith and Nattee were holding
one of the secret conclaves from which Lois
felt herself to be tacitly excluded, when the
outer door opened, and a tall, pale young man,
in the strict professional habit of a minister,
entered. Lois sprang up with a smile and a
look of welcome for Faith's sake, for this must
be the Mr. Nolan whose name had been on the
tongue of every one for days, and who was, as
Lois knew, expected to arrive on the day before.

He seemed half surprised at the glad alacrity
with which he was received by this stranger:
possibly he had not heard of the English girl,
who was an inmate in the house where formerly
he had only seen grave, solemn, rigid, or heavy
faces, and had been received with a stiff form of
welcome, very different from the blushing,
smiling, dimpled looks that innocently met him
with the greeting almost of an old acquaintance.
Lois having placed a chair for him, hastened out
to call Faith, never doubting but that the feeling
which her cousin entertained for the young
pastor was mutual, although it might be
unrecognised in its full depth by either.

"Faith!" said she, bright and breathless.
" Guess—No," checking herself to an assumed
unconsciousness of any particular importance
likely to be affixed to her words, " Mr. Nolan,
the new pastor, is in the keeping-room. He has
asked for my aunt and Manasseh. My aunt is
gone to the prayer-meeting at Pastor Tappau' s,
and Manasseh is away." Lois went on speaking
to give Faith time, for the girl had become
deadly white at the intelligence, while, at the
same time, her eyes met the keen, cunning eyes
of the old Indian with a peculiar look of half-
wondering awe, while Nattee's looks expressed
triumphant satisfaction.

"Go," said Lois, smoothing Faith's hair, and
kissing the white, cold cheek, " or he will wonder
why no one comes to see him, and perhaps
think he is not welcome." Faith went without
another word into the keeping-room, and shut
the door of communication. Nattee and Lois
were left together. Lois felt as happy as if
some piece of good fortune had befallen herself.
For the time her growing dread of Manasseh's
wild, ominous persistence in his suit, her aunt's
coldness, her own loneliness, were all forgotten,
and she could almost have danced with joy.