seeking you are thinking only of yourself--how bad you've been and all that.
I wouldn't think of myself and what I was any more, if I was you. You aint so
awful bad, James, that I'd turn a cold shoulder to you; but you might think I
was doing just that if ye stayed away from me and kept saying to yourself, 'I
aint fit to speak to Bessie Jones.'"

Her face had looked sweet and compassionate, and her touch upon his arm had
conveyed the subtle magic of sympathy. Under her homely logic, the truth had
burst upon him like sunshine. In brief, he had turned from his own shadow and
was in the light. He remembered how in his deep feeling he had bowed his head
on her shoulder and murmured, "Oh, Bessie, Heaven bless you! I see it all."

He no longer went to the anxious seat. With this young girl, and many others,
he was taken into the church on probation. Thereafter, his fancy never
wandered again, and there was no other girl in Oakville for him but Bessie.
In due time, he had gone with her to yonder meeting house to be married. It
had all seemed to come about as a matter of course. He scarcely knew when he
became formally engaged. They "kept company" together steadfastly for a
suitable period, and that seemed to settle it in their own and everybody
else's mind.

There had been no change in Bessie's quiet, constant soul. After her words
under the shadow of the pine tree she seemed to find it difficult to speak of
religious subjects, even to her husband; but her simple faith had been
unwavering, and she had entered into rest without fear or misgiving.

Not so her husband. He had his spiritual ups and downs, but, like herself,
was reticent. While she lived, only a heavy storm kept them from "going to
meeting," but with Holcroft worship was often little more than a form, his
mind being on the farm and its interests. Parents and relatives had died, and