Close to the barn came the pasture-field dotted with huge stumps, then the brule where the trees lay fallen across one another, over which the fire had run, and then the solid wall of forest here and there overtopped by the lofty crest of a white pine.

Into the forest in the west the sun was descending in gorgeous robes of glory.

The treetops caught the yellow light, and gleamed like the golden spires of some great and fabled city.
"Oh, mamma, see that big pine top! Doesn't it look like windows ?" cried Hughie, pointing to one of the lofty pine crests through which the sky quivered like molten gold.
"And the streets of the city are pure gold," said the mother, softly.
"Yes, I know," said Hughie, confidently, for to him all the scenes and stories of the Bible had long been familiar.

"Is it like that, mamma ?" "Much better, ever so much better than you can think." "Oh, mamma, I'm just awful hungry!" "Come away, then; so am I.What have you got, Jessie, for two very hungry people ?" "Porridge and pancakes," said Jessie, the minister's "girl," who not only ruled in the kitchen, but using the kitchen as a base, controlled the interior economy of the manse.
"Oh, goody!" yelled Hughie; "just what I like." And from the plates of porridge and the piles of pancakes that vanished from his plate no one could doubt his word.
Their reading that night was about the city whose streets were of pure gold, and after a little talk, Hughie and his baby brother were tucked away safely for the night, and the mother sat down to her never-ending task of making and mending.
The minister was away at Presbytery meeting in Montreal, and for ten days his wife would stand in the breach.

Of course the elders would take the meeting on the Sabbath day and on the Wednesday evening, but for all other ministerial duties when the minister was absent the congregation looked to the minister's wife.