"I was moody and restless the other day," said Hugh;
"desponding of everything; and I came upon this psalm; and it
made me ashamed of myself. I had been disbelieving it; and
because I could not see how things were going to work good, I
thought they were going to work evil. I thought we were
wearing out our lives alone here in a wearisome way, and I
forgot that it must be the very straightest way that we could
get home. I am sure we shall not want anything that will do us
good; and the rest I am willing to want — and so are you,
Fleda?"

Fleda squeezed his hand — that was all. For a minute he was
silent, and then went on, without any change of tone.

"I had a notion, awhile ago, that I should like if it were
possible for me to go to college; but I am quite satisfied
now. I have good time and opportunity to furnish myself with a
better kind of knowledge, that I shall want where college
learning wouldn't be of much use to me; and I can do it, I
dare say, better here in this mill, than if we had stayed in
New York, and I had lived in our favourite library."

"But, dear Hugh," said Fleda, who did not like this speech in
any sense of it; "the two things do not clash! The better man,
the better Christian always, other things being equal. The
more precious kind of knowledge should not make one undervalue
the less?"

"No," he said; but the extreme quietness and simplicity of his