country household, and for many years all intercourse was at an end.
Before twelve months were past, John Thacher himself was carried down
to the pasture burying-ground, and his old mother and the little child
were left to comfort and take care of each other as best they could in
the lonely farm-house.




V

A SUNDAY VISIT


In the gray house on the hill, one spring went by and another, and it
seemed to the busy doctor only a few months from the night he first
saw his ward before she was old enough to come soberly to church with
her grandmother. He had always seen her from time to time, for he had
often been called to the farm or to the Dyers and had watched her at
play. Once she had stopped him as he drove by to give him a little
handful of blue violets, and this had gone straight to his heart, for
he had been made too great a bugbear to most children to look for any
favor at their hands. He always liked to see her come into church on
Sundays, her steps growing quicker and surer as her good grandmother's
became more feeble. The doctor was a lonely man in spite of his many
friends, and he found himself watching for the little brown face that,
half-way across the old meeting-house, would turn round to look for
him more than once during the service. At first there was only the top
of little Nan Prince's prim best bonnet or hood to be seen, unless it
was when she stood up in prayer-time, but soon the bright eyes rose