yourself. I reckon you're capable of taking her measure, without any help.”

"I cannot conceive," said I, in a tone of vexation, "what made me accept the invitation! Only there was something so winning in that pale girl's face and voice, that it made me forget everything else. But I can send an excuse."

"Oh, no; go, by all means," returned Mrs. Divine. "You like to study human nature, and there's several sorts up there. There's two idiots—a man and a woman to begin with."

"Yes," interposed Mrs. Prescott, who had entered, and found out the subject of our discourse, "I can tell you something rather funny about that. The Bryers first came to Shiloh when I and my sister Susan were young girls; and we heard, in some roundabout way, that there were two unmarried sons in the family. So we joked each other about them, as girls will, declaring that we should set our caps for them, and win them for husbands. Well, the eldest one came first-Mortimer,-you'll see him there, with his hair all over his shoulders, and his head hanging down, and as silent as a gravestone, he hasn't altered much, only that he's grown old. So I said to Susan, 'You can take that one, Sue, he don't suit me; I'll wait for the next.' And when the next one came, 'twas the idiot!"

XXV.

AMONG THE BRYERS AND THORNES.

SET forth for the Bryer Farm in the dreamy hush of a warm summer afternoon. The breeze had swooned away in the tree-tops, and gave no sign of reviving life. The shade was not a "broad contiguity," but an irregular succession of dark, isolated patches on the arid and dusty highway. I was fain, therefore, to pause for a moment at the farm gateway, and take breath, while I reconnoitered the premises.

The house stood at a considerable distance from the road, in the midst of a verdant mosaic of meadow, orchard, and cornfield. Originally it had been of the better sort of farm-houses; and its white, expansive front must have been a pleasant sight, seen through the green vista of a long avenue of maples and beeches, leading up to the vinewreathed porch. But both the house and its surroundings had plainly fallen an easy prey to Time's omnivorous tooth. Its original white was merged into a dingy gray; its shingled roof and sides were loose, warped, and weathergnawn; and the missing base of one of the pillars of the portico had been replaced by a rough section of a log, with the bark still on. The avenue had become a grass-grown lane, through which a brown thread of footpath went wan dering in a vague, aimless way, and seemed to owe its final arrival at the cracked door-stone chiefly to the agency of

S

some happy chance. This lane was bordered on one side by a row of scrubby quince trees; on the other by a long line of crumbling stumps, among which three or four grey, decrepit maples stood disconsolately, unable to close up their ranks over their fallen comrades, and waiting, dumb and lonely, for their own stroke of doom. The fences were either falling down or rudely patched; and the gate whereat I stood had the look of an exhausted sentinel keeping watch over the brief bivouac of a defeated, wasted, and flying army.

Houses often have as distinct and individual an expression as faces of men. In this one, I soon discovered a quaint, curious resemblance to the only one of its inmates with whom I was tolerably well acquainted-Miss Caroline Bryer. Like that gaunt, antiquated virgin, with her air of decayed gentility, her manner of antique stateliness, and her cherished remembrances of bygone prosperity and distinction, the shabby old dwelling seemed to be inwardly pluming itself upon obsolete glories, and to be trying to keep itself alive upon the insufficient nutriment of aristocratic reminiscences.

I was somewhat dismayed to find, upon examination, that my choice of entrance upon the scene lay between climbing a stone wall and opening the aforesaid gate,designed, it would appear, for the admission of carts and wagons, rather than for the use of the human species, and in such a dilapidated condition that it was probable it would fall to pieces at an unaccustomed and unskilful touch. But if there had ever been a smaller and more manageable one, —as a certain irregularity in the stone wall seemed to indicate, it had vanished long ago, and left not a wrack behind. I was relieved from the dilemma, however, by the opportune appearance of the face and bust of Carrie Thorne, in the open upper half of the front door; looking, for the moment that she stood there, framed in vine-leaves and thrown out into strong relief from the dark background of

the interior, as if some lovely ancestral portrait had descended from the walls and hurried to the threshold to bid me welcome. She waved her hand in token of speedy help, ran swiftly down the lane, wrought the incredible miracle of causing that crazy gate to revolve upon its rusty hinges without burying us both in its ruins, and led the way back to the house.

A very different picture now filled the doorway-the full-length figure of Miss Bryer herself, clad in old-fashioned garments of rusty black, and with a general air of rustiness. about her-rustiness of joints, of voice, of manner, of garb -in admirable keeping with the rusty old roof over her head. Yet let me not be understood to say one disrespectful word of the mild, stately, decayed gentlewoman; the story of whose life, if fully and rightly told, would put to the blush myriads of lives that are lovelier to outward view. Wealth and position slipped early from her grasp. Idiocy put its woful mark upon the younger members of her family. Human love lingered for a moment at her side, and then passed on neglectful. Joy waved her a careless adieu; disappointment met her with a mocking salutation. Death made her motherless. Despair cast her down and trod her under foot. Then Duty came to her side, and whispered solemnly in her ear. Necessity raised her up, and sternly bade her move on. Care fastened its burden to her back. Quietly she gathered up the scattered fragments of her life and love, heaped them on the hearthstone of her heart, and kindled them into blaze and warmth for the narrow, stinted lives of her infirm, irritable, exacting father and her imbecile brother and sister. By that quiet fireside these poor paupers of existence find ever undisputed room, and steady, if not vivid, glow. We will trust that, while only intent upon their comfort, her own self-denying spirit fails not to catch some soft, reflected light, some healing warmth.

She gave me a characteristic greeting; kind without verg

ing upon cordiality, ceremonious without being cold. Behind her stood the two half-wits,-one with a gaping, staring, vacant face; the other silly, simpering, shuffling, restless, Both were past youth; neither would ever seem to be really old. Complete childishness of expression neutralized the effects of gray streaks in the hair, and wrinkles creeping into the face. They were scarcely less children now, after the lapse of forty or fifty years, than when they first opened their eyes upon the earth. For them, neither sorrow, crime, care, or responsibility, exist. Yet it goes far to vindicate the course of God's providence in this world, and to reconcile us to the ministry of griefs and trials, to feel that none of us, whatever our lack or our burden, would willingly change places with them.

It was evident that these irresponsible old children were kindly cared for; their garments were clean, though plain, their persons in perfect order. Miss Bryer introduced them with a slight wave of her hand, and a melancholy, deprecating tone of voice- "Betsey and Simeon, my poor sister and brother." Obviously, she was nervous about the impression they might produce upon a stranger, but she was too kind-hearted to rob them of their childish gratification in the sight of a new face, or to interrupt their settled habit of following her about the house, like her shadow.

Then she opened the door into a large, dim parlor. "I am glad to see you in our poor old house, Miss Frost," she said, with a half sigh, as she placed me a chair. "It is not what it was once, neither are we,-the house and the family have gone down hill together,—but if you can put up with such entertainment as we can give you, you are very welcome. Sit down a bit; I suppose Eliza is expecting you to come right to her room, but you have had a warm walk in the sun, and you had better rest a little and cool yourself off before you go up."

"Cool yourself off before you go up "-" before you go up," repeated the two idiots, one after the other, in such