If he had nothing better to do that evening, he was either asked to dine at the parsonage, or he, in his careless hospitable way, invited the other two to dine with him, Ellinor forming the fourth at table, as far as seats went, although her dinner had been eaten early with Miss Monro.

She was little and slight of her age, and her father never seemed to understand how she was passing out of childhood.

Yet while in stature she was like a child; in intellect, in force of character, in strength of clinging affection, she was a woman.

There might be much of the simplicity of a child about her, there was little of the undeveloped girl, varying from day to day like an April sky, careless as to which way her own character is tending.

So the two young people sat with their elders, and both relished the company they were thus prematurely thrown into.