One afternoon two men were digging post-holes and setting in redwood posts on the side of one of the main roads in Orangeville. Everything had been exceedingly quiet, not a team was seen since dinner. Nothing in the way of excitement had happened to relieve the monotony of their work. They were interested and delighted when they heard a noise, and, looking down the road, saw a vehicle coming, but it was not near enough to tell whose it was. When it got a little nearer one of the men said: "Why, Alfred, it is the old man Wheelwright and his girl Stella."

Alfred replied to James, the man who has just spoken: "Stella was to school at San JosÉ, and her father has been to Roseland to meet the train which arrived this morning and bring her home."

"How she has grown," remarked James, "since she went away. She has improved in her looks very much."

"Yes," said Alfred, "I think she will make a fine woman, for she has a bright, intelligent eye, and they say she is real smart in her studies, away ahead of most of the girls round here. She seems so different to them. She comes of good stock; her mother is the brightest and best woman in Orangeville, and her father is a well-posted man."

"You must be kind of stuck on her and her folks," replied his companion. "I don't go so much myself on girls who have their heads in books all the time. What does a fellow want with such a girl as that? She may be all right to be a school marm, or woman's rights talker, but I don't want any of them. I say to hell with book women. Give me a girl like Nance Slater. She is round and plump, don't care much for books or papers, but is bright and laughing all the day. She is the girl to have lots of fun with, and when it comes to making a man a good wife, why, she is the best cook in Orangeville. I was over to Slater's on an errand the other morning about ten o'clock, and Nance was looking as pretty as a picture; her cheeks had the blush of the peach on them; her eyes were sparkling bright, her lips red, and when she laughed, her teeth looked like the best and whitest ivory you ever saw. She had on such a pretty, light, calico wrapper, and a white apron with a bib, and was busy taking out of the oven some mince pies and just putting in some apple pies. She had a kettle of doughnuts a frying, and a whole lot of cookie paste ready to cut out and bake. She said: 'James, you must sample my doughnuts. Mother, give James a cup of coffee to go with them; there is some hot on the stove.' Nance is a trump. She is straight goods. The trouble with those Wheelwrights is they live awful close, and instead of cooking good meals, spend their time in reading books. They starve in the kitchen to sit in the parlor. The devil take the books, I say. I wouldn't give a book girl barn room for all the good she would be to me."

Alfred replied: "That's all right; every fellow to his own girl, I say. It would not do for all to be after the same one. As for me, I like Stella. She has some stability of character. There is something interesting about a girl like that, and if she don't care about doing all the cooking, why, I can help her, if she will only let me enjoy her company."

The sun went down and the men went each to his own home, being content in their mind that each man should have his own choice.

Stella was the only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Wheelwright, she being the only child they ever had had. At the time she returned from school she was sixteen and would have one year more in school. She was very precocious, a thorough student, and would allow nothing to divert her from her studies. She was at that age when the intellectual part of her nature predominated, though the spiritual was just beginning to tinge her mind with its coloring. She possessed a strong individuality; she was a born investigator; would accept no statements without examining them, and rebelled against a great many of the customs and usages of society. She did her own thinking, and nothing seemed to please her more than to take her investigating axe and cut away some of the roots which held her free spirit in bondage. Problems seemed to be crowding on her mind thick and fast, and she could not take the time from her studies to do the necessary amount of reading and thinking to resolve them, and she was looking forward to the time when her last year would expire. During this vacation she took much physical exercise, for she did not believe in developing one side of her nature at the expense of the other. She rode horseback and climbed the sides of steep mountains, mixed with the young people in their recreations, such as camping parties, picnics, and social entertainments. In company she was bright, witty, and entertaining. She had no fear; was full of confidence, and was better balanced than her companions in that she was not carried away by pleasures and the company of the opposite sex.

When she was not away from home on camping or picnic excursions, she would find time to visit the cabin of an old man who lived alone, and had sore eyes so that he could not see to read. She would read to him whatever he liked, cheer him up by her bright, happy talk, and when she left the old man often thought to himself that her comings were like angels' visits, for she seemed to lift him up completely out of himself into a new world. When she laid her head on her pillow at night, after having spent the evening with old Andrews, she thought how much greater a satisfaction she derived from hearing that old man say, on her leaving him: "God bless you, Stella, you always bring sunshine to me," than she did from even the most enjoyable pleasure excursion.

She bestowed the attractions and charm of her social and intellectual nature less on those outside than those inside her home. You saw her at her best when talking to her father and mother.

Some parents let their children outgrow them intellectually, so that there is a great gulf fixed between parents and children, the latter having nothing in common with the former. Mr. and Mrs. Wheelwright tried as much as possible to keep themselves in advance of their daughter's intellectual growth, so that they might always command her respect for their opinions, and that she might realize that in them she found two interesting, intelligent companions, whom she could love and confide in.

The relationship between many parents and their grown children is very unsatisfactory; for being on the material plane, there is nothing very permanent in their relationship. The grown son and his father have only in common business and social interests; that is their world; outside of that neither one has any life that he realizes.

It is the same with the grown daughters and their mother. Their life is mainly in the social and domestic world. Outside of that they apparently have no existence; but the true ideal parents and children are those whose life is in the intellectual and spiritual world. They cease to exist in each other's minds as parents and children, and realize a stronger and more permanent tie, and intellectual and spiritual union, which is blessed, glorious, and eternal. They realize daily that "In Him they live, and breathe, and have their being"; that they are immersed in an ocean of Divine love, and that Divine love permeates them all through and through; and that it is in that ocean of Divine love that they realize that they are one. They feel a blessed nearness and dearness and oneness to each other, though separated by oceans and continents, for they have realized through sweet experience that the same intelligent spiritual thought and love pulses through them all as if they were one organism.