the better, since that winter evening when you put her into my charge. Why, Priscilla has a bloom in her cheeks, now!”

“Has my pale little girl a bloom?” repeated Moodie with a kind of slow wonder. “Priscilla with a bloom in her cheeks! Ah, I am afraid I shall not know my little girl.

And is she happy?”

“Just as happy as a bird,” answered Hollingsworth.

“Then, gentlemen,” said our guest apprehensively,” I don’t think it well for me to go any farther. I crept hitherward only to ask about Priscilla; and now that you have told me such good news, perhaps I can do no better than to creep back again. If she were to see this old face of mine, the child would