"Nonsense," said Fanny. "Wait a moment, I am going a little way with
you;" and as they walked along, Fanny tried to be herself again.

"There comes Graffam," said she: "now I hope that he is drunk; if so,
we will make him tell about the times when he was major."

But in this Fanny was disappointed. Soberly, but sadly, the poor man of
the plain came along, and shrunk from the gaze of those merry girls.

"O," said Fanny, "Uncle Pete is not tipsy; so we shall not hear from
the major to-night."

Poor Graffam passed them quickly, for he heard this remark; and a
deeper shade of gloom came over him. "What is the use of this dreadful
struggle?" thought he. "What suffering this self-denial has cost me!
and yet what is gained? Nothing, but to know that I am ridiculed and
despised."

"It is the first time," said Fanny to herself, as she parted with Alice
that night--"the first time that I have ever acted a part: but I would
not have her suspect my feelings; and why do I feel so?"

Thus thought Fanny, as she sat down upon a rock by the roadside, and
could not keep back the tears which came from a heart never so sad
before. And why so sad? Fanny had been, for a few hours, in close
converse with one who every day was becoming more and more meet for an
inheritance with the saints in light. She had ridiculed and set at
defiance the most common rules of politeness; but what was she to do
with the self-forgetting, affectionate courtesy which she had seen, not