nothing,--in fact, had made substantial progress; and her old friend and
teacher, Mrs. Allan, was as proud as she was astonished when she first
heard her play and sing. Still more astonished was she at the forceful
character the girl had developed. She went away a gentle, loving,
clinging child; her nature, like her voice, belonging to the order of
birds,--bright, flitting, merry, confiding. She returned a woman, still
loving, still gentle in her manner, but with a new poise in her bearing,
a resoluteness, a fire, of which her first girlhood had given no
suggestion. It was strange to see how similar yet unlike were the
comments made on her in the manse and in the farmhouse by the two
couples most interested in her welfare.

"It is wonderful, Robert," said Mrs. Allan to her husband, "how that
girl has changed, and yet not changed. It is the music that has lifted
her up so. What a glorious thing is a real passion for any art in a
human soul! But she can never live here among these people. I must take
her to Halifax."

"No," said Mr. Allan; "her work will be here. She belongs to her people
in heart, all the same. She will not be discontented."

"Husband, I'm doubtin' if we've done the right thing by the child, after
a'," said the mother, tearfully, to the father, at the end of the first
evening after Bel's return. "She's got the ways o' the city on her, an'
she carries herself as if she'd be teachin' the minister his own self. I
doubt but she'll feel herself strange i' the house."

"Never you fash yourself," replied John. "The girl's got her head,
that's a'; but her heart's i' the right place. Ye'll see she'll put her
strength to whatever there's to be done. She'll be a master hand at