and nice and dear. Everything on her shines, it's so clean; and when
she comes through the trees, with her white apron and her purple
calico dress, your heart jumps, because you know she's going to make
everything pleasant. Her hair has a pretty wave in it, and her hand
is soft on your forehead; and it's 'most worth while being sick just
to have her in the house."

Meanwhile, so truly is "praise our fructifying sun," Lydia bloomed
into a hundred hitherto unsuspected graces of mind and heart and
speech. A sly sense of humour woke into life, and a positive talent
for conversation, latent hitherto because she had never known any one
who cared to drop a plummet into the crystal springs of her
consciousness. When the violin was laid away, she would sit in the
twilight, by Davy's sofa, his thin hand in hers, and talk with
Anthony about books and flowers and music, and about the meaning of
life too--its burdens and mistakes, and joys and sorrows; groping
with him in the darkness to find a clue to God's purposes.

Davy had long afternoons at Lyddy's house as the autumn grew into
winter. He read to her while she sewed rags for a new sitting-room
carpet, and they played dominoes and checkers together in the
twilight before supper-time--suppers that were a feast to the boy,
after Mrs. Buck's cookery. Anthony brought his violin sometimes of
an evening, and Almira Berry, the next neighbour on the road to the
Mills, would drop in and join the little party. Almira used to sing
"Auld Robin Gray," "What Will You Do, Love," and "Robin Adair," to
the great enjoyment of everybody; and she persuaded Lyddy to buy the
old church melodeon, and learn to sing alto in "Oh, Wert Thou in the
Cauld Blast," "Gently, Gently Sighs the Breeze," and "I Know a Bank."
Nobody sighed for the gaieties and advantages of a great city when,