in the fields behind, which a slight breeze bore to him. He then moved
on, carefully scraped his shoes, clean and well-polished as they were,--
for Mr. Dale was rather a beau in his own clerical way,--on the scraper
without the door, and lifted the latch.

Your virtuoso looks with artistical delight on the figure of some nymph
painted on an Etruscan vase, engaged in pouring out the juice of the
grape from her classic urn. And the parson felt as harmless, if not as
elegant a pleasure, in contemplating Widow Fairfield brimming high a
glittering can, which she designed for the refreshment of the thirsty
haymakers.

Mrs. Fairfield was a middle-aged, tidy woman, with that alert precision
of movement which seems to come from an active, orderly mind; and as she
now turned her head briskly at the sound of the parson's footstep, she
showed a countenance prepossessing though not handsome,--a countenance
from which a pleasant, hearty smile, breaking forth at that moment,
effaced some lines that, in repose, spoke "of sorrows, but of sorrows
past;" and her cheek, paler than is common to the complexions even of the
fair sex, when born and bred amidst a rural population, might have
favoured the guess that the earlier part of her life had been spent in
the languid air and "within-doors" occupations of a town.

"Never mind me," said the parson, as Mrs. Fairfield dropped her quick
courtesy, and smoothed her apron; "if you are going into the hayfield, I
will go with you; I have something to say to Lenny,--an excellent boy."

WIDOW.--"Well, sir, and you are kind to say it,--but so he is."

PARSON.--"He reads uncommonly well, he writes tolerably; he is the best