CHAPTER VII.

Lucy and her Pupil.

"This shadow on the dial's face

That steals from day to day,
With slow, unseen, unceasing pace,
Moments, and months, and years away;
This shadow, which in every clime,
Since light and motion first began.
Hath held its course sublime-

What is it? Mortal man!

It is the scythe of Time.'-MONTGOMERY.

HUS time wore on, and two years rolled away at the farm without marking their flight by

any traces of sorrow or sadness to crush the young flowers that were promising so fair. Lucy was the same happy, light-hearted girl, as bright and joyous as ever. Bessie Higgins loved and respected Lucy both as a teacher and a friend; her heart went out to her in a kind of admiring devotion, regarding her as the fairest and most perfect of human beings. She had set her idol on a very elevated pedestal, surrounding it in her imagination with all that is pure and lovely; and there she instituted a sort of hero-worship

in all sincerity and simplicity. Lucy's instructions had been crowned with surprising success, and she is a very different child now from the time we first saw her.

Let us glance at her this warm June evening as she stands at the cottage gate, looking anxiously down the road, as if waiting for some one. I think even you, dear reader, would fail to recognise in the plump, rosy girl of fifteen, the once pale, disordered, waif-looking child who introduced herself at the farm. But there are other changes and improvements around, quite as marked. The cottage is no longer a desolate, weirdlooking place, but presents a pretty picture to the passer-by, as it stands beautifully gay and fresh with the brilliant-hued blossoms of the scarlet creepers twined up the white walls. The once neglected and deserted garden is now bright with flowers, and fragrant with the wealth of blossoms, which drop on the little pathway like summer snow. All nature seems to rejoice in the change, and to do its utmost to testify its approval, by rendering the earth as prolific as possible, and thus reward the labour spent upon it. Even the birds seem to sing sweeter than usual, as they perch on the apple-trees, and warble forth their rich notes in praise of the good God who has filled the earth with such lovely things.

Things have, indeed, prospered with the widow. She not only continues her former occupation, but at