XXXIV.

Now while the Three were tightening

Their harness on their backs,

The Consul was the foremost man

To take in hand an axe;

And Fathers mixed with Commons

Seized hatchet, bar, and crow,

And smote upon the planks above,

And loosed the props below.

XXXV.

Meanwhile the Tuscan army,

Right glorious to behold,

Came flashing back the noonday light,

Rank behind rank, like surges bright

Of a broad sea of gold.

Four hundred trumpets sounded

A peal of warlike glee,

As that great host, with measured tread,

And spears advanced, and ensigns spread,

Rolled slowly toward the bridge's head,

Where stood the dauntless Three.

XXXVI.

The Three stood calm and silent

And looked upon the foes,

And a great shout of laughter

From all the vanguard rose;

And forth three chiefs came spurring

Before that deep array:

To earth they sprang, their swords they drew,

And lifted high their shields, and flew

To win the narrow way.

XXXVII.

Aunus from green Tifernum,

Lord of the Hill of Vines;

And Seius, whose eight hundred slaves

Sicken in Ilva's mines;

And Picus, long to Clusium

Vassal in peace and war,

Who led to fight his Umbrian powers

From that gray crag where, girt with towers,

The fortress of Nequinum lowers

O'er the pale waves of Nar.

XXXVIII.

Stout Lartius hurled down Aunus

Into the stream beneath;

Herminius struck at Seius,

And clove him to the teeth;

At Picus brave Horatius

Darted one fiery thrust,

And the proud Umbrian's gilded arms

Clashed in the bloody dust.

XXXIX.

Then Ocnus of Falerii

Rushed on the Roman Three;

And Lausulus of Urgo,

The rover of the sea;

And Aruns of Volsinium,

Who slew the great wild boar,

The great wild boar that had his den

Amidst the reeds of Cosa's fen,

And wasted fields and slaughtered men

Along Albinia's shore.

XL.

Herminius smote down Aruns;

Lartius laid Ocnus low;

Right to the heart of Lausulus

Horatius sent a blow.

"Lie there," he cried, "fell pirate!

No more, aghast and pale,

From Ostia's walls the crowd shall mark

The track of thy destroying bark.

No more Campania's hinds shall fly

To woods and caverns when they spy

Thy thrice accursed sail."

XLI.

But now no sound of laughter

Was heard among the foes;

A wild and wrathful clamor

From all the vanguard rose.

Six spears' length from the entrance

Halted that deep array,

And for a space no man came forth

To win the narrow way.

XLII.

But hark! the cry is Astur;

And lo! the ranks divide,

And the great Lord of Luna

Comes with his stately stride.

Upon his ample shoulders

Clangs loud the fourfold shield,

And in his hand he shakes the brand

Which none but he can wield.

XLIII.

He smiled on those bold Romans

A smile serene and high;

He eyed the flinching Tuscans,

And scorn was in his eye.

Quoth he, "The she-wolf's litter

Stand savagely at bay;

But will ye dare to follow,

If Astur clears the way?"

XLIV.

Then, whirling up his broadsword

With both hands to the height,

He rushed against Horatius,

And smote with all his might.

With shield and blade Horatius

Right deftly turned the blow.

The blow, though turned, came yet too nigh;

It missed his helm, but gashed his thigh;

The Tuscans raised a joyful cry

To see the red blood flow.

XLV.

He reeled and on Herminius

He leaned one breathing-space,

Then, like a wild cat mad with wounds,

Sprang right at Astur's face.

Through teeth and skull and helmet

So fierce a thrust he sped,

The good sword stood a hand-breadth out

Behind the Tuscan's head.

XLVI.

And the great Lord of Luna

Fell at that deadly stroke,

As falls on Mount Alvernus

A thunder-smitten oak.

Far o'er the crashing forest

The giant arms lie spread;

And the pale augurs, muttering low,

Gaze on the blasted head.

XLVII.

On Astur's throat Horatius

Right firmly pressed his heel,

And thrice and four times tugged amain

Ere he wrenched out the steel.

"And see," he cried, "the welcome,

Fair guests that wait you here!

What noble Lucumo comes next

To taste our Roman cheer?"

XLVIII.

But at his haughty challenge

A sullen murmur ran,

Mingled of wrath and shame and dread,

Along that glittering van.

There lacked not men of prowess,

Nor men of lordly race;

For all Etruria's noblest

Were round the fatal place.

XLIX.

But all Etruria's noblest

Felt their hearts sink to see

On the earth the bloody corpses,

In the path of the dauntless Three;

And, from the ghastly entrance

Where those bold Romans stood,

All shrank, like boys who, unaware,

Ranging the woods to start a hare,

Come to the mouth of the dark lair

Where, growling low, a fierce old bear

Lies amidst bones and blood.

L.

Was none who would be foremost

To lead such dire attack;

But those behind cried "Forward!"

And those before cried "Back!"

And backward now and forward

Wavers the deep array;

And on the tossing sea of steel

To and fro the standards reel,

And the victorious trumpet-peal

Dies fitfully away.

LI.

Yet one man for one moment

Strode out before the crowd;

Well known was he to all the Three,

And they gave him greeting loud.

"Now welcome, welcome, Sextus!

Now welcome to thy home!

Why dost thou stay and turn away?

Here lies the road to Rome."

LII.

Thrice looked he at the city,

Thrice looked he at the dead;

And thrice came on in fury,

And thrice turned back in dread;

And, white with fear and hatred,

Scowled at the narrow way

Where, wallowing in a pool of blood,

The bravest Tuscans lay.

LIII.

But meanwhile axe and lever

Have manfully been plied,

And now the bridge hangs tottering

Above the boiling tide.

"Come back, come back, Horatius!"

Loud cried the Fathers all.

"Back, Lartius! back, Herminius!

Back, ere the ruin fall!"

LIV.

Back darted Spurius Lartius,

Herminius darted back;

And, as they passed, beneath their feet

They felt the timbers crack.

But when they turned their faces,

And on the farther shore

Saw brave Horatius stand alone,

They would have crossed once more.

LV.

But with a crash like thunder

Fell every loosened beam,

And, like a dam, the mighty wreck

Lay right athwart the stream;

And a long shout of triumph

Rose from the walls of Rome,

As to the highest turret tops

Was splashed the yellow foam.

LVI.

And, like a horse unbroken

When first he feels the rein,

The furious river struggled hard,

And tossed his tawny mane,

And burst the curb and bounded,

Rejoicing to be free,

And, whirling down in fierce career

Battlement and plank and pier,

Rushed headlong to the sea.

LVII.

Alone stood brave Horatius,

But constant still in mind,

Thrice thirty thousand foes before

And the broad flood behind.

"Down with him!" cried false Sextus,

With a smile on his pale face.

"Now yield thee," cried Lars Porsena,

"Now yield thee to our grace."

LVIII.

Round turned he, as not deigning

Those craven ranks to see;

Naught spake he to Lars Porsena,

To Sextus naught spake he;

But he saw on Palatinus

The white porch of his home,

And he spake to the noble river

That rolls by the towers of Rome:

LIX.

"O Tiber! father Tiber!

To whom the Romans pray,

A Roman's life, a Roman's arms,

Take thou in charge this day!"

So he spake, and speaking sheathed

The good sword by his side,

And with his harness on his back

Plunged headlong in the tide.

LX.

No sound of joy or sorrow

Was heard from either bank,

But friends and foes in dumb surprise,

With parted lips and straining eyes,

Stood gazing where he sank;

And when above the surges

They saw his crest appear,

All Rome sent forth a rapturous cry,

And even the ranks of Tuscany

Could scarce forbear to cheer.

LXI.

But fiercely ran the current,

Swollen high by months of rain;

And fast his blood was flowing,

And he was sore in pain,

And heavy with his armor,

And spent with changing blows;

And oft they thought him sinking,

But still again he rose.

LXII.

Never, I ween, did swimmer,

In such an evil case,

Struggle through such a raging flood

Safe to the landing-place;

But his limbs were borne up bravely

By the brave heart within,

And our good father Tiber

Bore bravely up his chin.

LXIII.

"Curse on him!" quoth false Sextus;

"Will not the villain drown?

But for this stay, ere close of day,

We should have sacked the town!"

"Heaven help him!" quoth Lars Porsena,

"And bring him safe to shore;

For such a gallant feat of arms

Was never seen before."

LXIV.

And now he feels the bottom;

Now on dry earth he stands;

Now round him throng the Fathers

To press his gory hands;

And now, with shouts and clapping

And noise of weeping loud,

He enters through the River Gate,

Borne by the joyous crowd.

LXV.

They gave him of the corn-land,

That was of public right,

As much as two strong oxen

Could plow from morn till night;

And they made a molten image

And set it up on high,

And there it stands unto this day

To witness if I lie.

LXVI.

It stands in the Comitium,

Plain for all folk to see,

Horatius in his harness

Halting upon one knee;

And underneath is written,

In letters all of gold,

How valiantly he kept the bridge

In the brave days of old.

LXVII.

And still his name sounds stirring

Unto the men of Rome,

As the trumpet-blast that cries to them

To charge the Volscian home;

And wives still pray to Juno

For boys with hearts as bold

As his who kept the bridge so well

In the brave days of old.

LXVIII.

And in the nights of winter,

When the cold north winds blow,

And the long howling of the wolves

Is heard amidst the snow;

When round the lonely cottage

Roars loud the tempest's din,

And the good logs of Algidus

Roar louder yet within;

LXIX.

When the oldest cask is opened,

And the largest lamp is lit;

When the chestnuts glow in the embers,

And the kid turns on the spit;

When young and old in circle

Around the firebrands close;

When the girls are weaving baskets,

And the lads are shaping bows;

LXX.

When the goodman mends his armor,

And trims his helmet's plume;

When the goodwife's shuttle merrily

Goes flashing through the loom;

With weeping and with laughter

Still is the story told,

How well Horatius kept the bridge

In the brave days of old.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Lord Macaulay's ballad should be known by heart by every

schoolboy. It is the finest of the famous "Lays of Ancient Rome."]

A Bit of Brightness.

BY MARY JOANNA PORTER.

It not only rained, but it poured; so the brightness was certainly not

in the sky. It was Sunday, too, and that fact, so Phoebe thought,

added to the gloominess of the storm. For Phoebe had left behind her

the years in which she had been young and strong, and in which she had

no need to regard the weather. Now if she went out in the rain she was

sure to suffer afterward with rheumatism, so, of course, a day like this

made her a prisoner within doors. There she had not very much to occupy

her. She and her husband, Gardener Jim, lived so simply that it was a

small matter to prepare and clear away their meals, and, that being

attended to, what was there for her to do?

Phoebe had never been much of a scholar, and reading even the

coarse-print Bible, seemed to try her eyes. Knitting on Sunday was not

to be thought of, and there was nobody passing by to be watched and

criticised. Altogether Phoebe considered it a very dreary day.

As for Gardener Jim, he had his pipe to comfort him. All the same he

heaved a sigh now and then, as if to say, "O dear! I wish things were

not quite so dull."

In the big house near by lived Jim's employer, Mr. Stevens. There

matters were livelier, for there were living five healthy, happy

children, whose mother scarcely knew the meaning of the word quiet. When

it drew near two o'clock in the afternoon they were all begging to be

allowed to go to Sunday-school.

"You'll let me go, won't you, ma?" cried Jessie, the oldest, and Tommy

and Nellie and Johnny and even baby Clara echoed the petition. Mrs.

Stevens thought the thing over and decided that Jessie and Tommy might

go. For the others, she would have Sunday-school at home.

"Be sure to put on your high rubbers and your water-proofs and take

umbrellas." These were the mother's instructions as the two left the

family sitting-room. A few moments after, Jessie looked in again. "Well,

you are wrapped up!" exclaimed Mrs. Stevens, "I don't think the storm

can hurt you." "Neither do I, ma, and Oh! I forgot to ask you before,

may we stop at Gardener Jim's on the way home?"

"Yes, if you'll be careful not to make any trouble for him and Phoebe,

and will come home before supper-time."

Tommy, who was standing behind Jessie in the doorway, suppressed the

hurrah that rose to his lips. He remembered that it was Sunday and that

his mother would not approve of his making a great noise on the holy

day.

He and Jessie had quite a hard tramp to the little chapel in which the

school was held. The graveled sidewalks were covered with that

uncomfortable mixture of snow and water known as slush, which beside

being wet was cold and slippery, so that walking was no easy thing. Yet

what did that matter after they had reached the school?

Their teachers were there, and so was the superintendent, and so were

nearly half of the scholars. Theirs was a wide-awake school, you see,

and it did not close on account of weather.

Each of the girls in Jessie's class was asked to recite a verse that she

had chosen through the week. Jessie's was this:

"To do good and to communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices God

is well pleased."

The teacher talked a little about it and Jessie thought it over on her

way to Gardener Jim's. The result was that she said to her brother:

"Tommy, you know mother said we must not trouble Jim and Phoebe."

"Yes, I know it, but I don't think we will, do you?"

"No, I'm sure they'll be glad to see us, but I was thinking we might do

something to make them very glad. Suppose that while we're in there, I

read to them from the Bible, and then we sing to them two or three of

our hymns."

"What a queer girl you are, Jess! Anybody would think that you were a

minister going to hold church in the cottage. But I'm agreed, if you

want to; I like singing anyway. It seems to let off a little of the 'go'

in a fellow."

By this time they had reached the cottage, and if they had been a prince

and princess--supposing that such titled personages were living in these

United States--they could not have had a warmer welcome. Gardener Jim

opened the door in such haste that he scattered the ashes from his pipe

over the rag-carpet on the floor. Phoebe, too, contrived to drop her

spectacles while she was saying "How do you do," and it took at least

three minutes to find them again.

At length, however, the surprise being over, the children removed their

wraps, Jim refilled his pipe, and Phoebe settled herself in her chair.

She was slowly revolving in her mind the question whether it would be

best to offer her visitors a lunch of cookies or one of apples, when

Jessie said:

"Phoebe, wouldn't you like to have me read you a chapter or two?"

"'Deed and I would, miss, and I'd be that grateful that I couldn't

express myself. My eyes, you see, are getting old, and Jim's not much

better, and neither of us was ever a scholard."

So Jessie read in her sweet, clear voice the chapters beloved in palace

and in cottage, about the holy city New Jerusalem, and about the pure

river of water of life, clear as crystal; about the tree whose leaves

are for the healing of the nations; about the place where they need no

candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light;

and they shall reign for ever and ever.

"Dear me, dear me!" exclaimed Phoebe, "it seems almost like being

there, doesn't it? Now I'll have something to think of to-night if I lie

awake with the rheumatism."

"We're going to sing to you, too," was Tommy's rejoinder.

Then he and Jessie sang "It's coming, coming nearer, that lovely land

unseen," and "O, think of the home over there" and Phoebe's favorite:

"In the far better land of glory and light

The ransomed are singing in garments of white,

The harpers are harping and all the bright train

Sing the song of redemption, the Lamb that was slain."

Jim wiped his eyes as they finished. He and Phoebe had once had a

little boy and girl, but both had long, long been in the "better land."

Yet though he wept it was in gladness, for the reading and singing had

seemed to open a window through which he might look into the streets of

the heavenly city.

Thus Tommy and Jessie had brought sunshine to the cottage on that rainy

Sunday afternoon. They had given the cup of cold water--surely they had

their reward.

How Sammy Earned the Prize.

BY MRS. M.E. SANGSTER.

"And now," said the Principal, looking keenly and pleasantly through his

spectacles, "I have another prize offer to announce. Besides the prizes

for the best scholarship, and the best drawing and painting, and for

punctuality, I am authorized by the Trustees of this Academy to offer a

prize for valor. Fifty dollars in gold will be given the student who

shows the most courage and bravery during the next six months."

Fifty dollars in gold! The sum sounded immense in the ears of the boys,

not one of whom had ever had five dollars for his very own at one time,

that is in one lump sum. As they went home one and another wondered

where the chance to show true courage was to come in their prosaic

lives.

"It isn't the time when knights go round to rescue forlorn ladies and do

brave deeds," said Johnny Smith, ruefully.

"No, and there never are any fires in Scott-town, or mad dogs, or

anything," added Billy Thorne.

"But Sammy Slocum said nothing at all," Billy told his mother. "Old

Sammy's a bit of a coward. He faints when he sees blood. Of course he

knows he can't get the prize for valor, or any prize for that matter.

His mother has to take in washing."

"William," said Billy's father, who had just entered, "that is a very

un-American way of speaking. If I were dead and buried your mother might

have to take in washing, and it would do her no discredit. Honest work

is honest work. Sammy is a very straight sort of boy. He's been helping

at the store Saturday mornings, and I like the boy. He's got pluck."

"Six months give a fellow time to turn round, any way," said Billy, as

the family sat down to supper.

It was September when this conversation took place, and it was December

before the teachers, who were watching the boys' daily records very

carefully, had the least idea who would get the prize for valor.

"Perhaps we cannot award it this year," said the Principal. "Fifty

dollars should not be thrown away, nor a prize really bestowed on

anybody who has not merited it."

"There are chances for heroism in the simplest and most humble life,"

answered little Miss Riggs, the composition teacher.

That December was awfully cold. Storm and wind and snow. Blizzard and

gale and hurricane. You never saw anything like it. In the middle of

December the sexton was taken down with rheumatic fever, and there

wasn't a soul to ring the bell, or clear away the snow, or keep fires

going in the church, and not a man in the parish was willing to take the

extra work upon him. The old sexton was a good deal worried, for he

needed the little salary so much that he couldn't bear to give it up,

and in that village church there was no money to spare.

Sammy's mother sent bowls and pitchers of gruel and other things of the

sort to the sick man, and when Sammy took them he heard the talk of the

sexton and his wife. One night he came home, saying:

"Mother, I've made a bargain with Mr. Anderson, I'm going to be the

sexton of the church for the next three months."

"You, my boy, you're not strong enough. It's hard work shoveling snow

and breaking paths, and ringing the bell, and having the church warm on

Sunday, and the lamps filled and lighted. And you have your chores to do

at home."

"Yes, dear mammy, I'll manage; I'll go round and get the clothes for

you, and carry them home and do every single thing, just the same as

ever, and I'll try to keep Mr. Anderson's place for him too."

"I don't know that I ought to let you," said his mother.

But she did consent.

Then began Sammy's trial. He never had a moment to play. Other boys

could go skating on Saturday, but he had to stay around the church, and

dust and sweep, and put the cushions down in the pews, and see that the

old stoves were all right, as to dampers and draughts, bring coal up

from the cellar, have wood split, lamps filled, wicks cut, chimneys

polished. The big bell was hard to ring, hard for a fourteen-year-old

boy. At first, for the fun of it, some of the other boys helped him pull

the rope, but their enthusiasm soon cooled. Day in, day out, the stocky,

sturdy form of Samuel might be seen, manfully plodding through all

varieties of weather, and he had a good-morning or a good-evening ready

for all he met. When he learned his lessons was a puzzle, but learn them

he did, and nobody could complain that in anything he fell off, though

his face did sometimes wear a preoccupied look, and his mother said that

at night he slept like the dead and she just hated to have to call him

in the morning. Through December and January and February and March,

Sammy made as good a sexton as the church had ever had, and by April,

Mr. Anderson was well again.

The queer thing about it all was that Sammy had forgotten the prize for

valor altogether. Nothing was said about it in school, and most of the

boys were so busy looking out for brave deeds to come their way, that

if one had appeared, they would not have recognized it. In fact,

everybody thought the prize for valor was going by the board.

Till July came. And then, when the visitors were there, and the prizes

were all given out, the President looked keenly through his spectacles

and said:

"Will Master Samuel Slocum step forward to the platform?"

Modestly blushing, up rose Sammy, and somewhat awkwardly he made his way

to the front.

"Last winter," said the President, "there was a boy who not only did his

whole duty in our midst, but denied himself for another, undertook hard

work for many weeks, without pay and without shirking. We all know his

name. Here he stands. To Samuel Slocum the committee award the prize for

valor."

He put five shining ten-dollar pieces into Sammy's hard brown hand.

The Glorious Fourth.

Hurrah for the Fourth, the glorious Fourth,

The day we all love best,

When East and West and South and North,

No boy takes breath or rest.

When the banners float and the bugles blow,

And drums are on the street,

Throbbing and thrilling, and fifes are shrilling,

And there's tread of marching feet.

Hurrah for the nation's proudest day,

The day that made us free!

Let our cheers ring out in a jubilant shout

Far over land and sea.

Hurrah for the flag on the school-house roof,

Hurrah for the white church spire!

For the homes we love, and the tools we wield,

And the light of the household fire.

Hurrah, hurrah for the Fourth of July,

The day we love and prize,

When there's wonderful light on this fair green earth,

And beautiful light in the skies.

The Middle Daughter.

BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER.

CHAPTER I.

AT THE MANSE.

"I am troubled and low in my mind," said our mother, looking pensively

out of the window. "I am really extremely anxious about the

Wainwrights."

It was a dull and very chilly day in the late autumn. Fog hid the hills;

wet leaves soaked into the soft ground; the trees dripped with moisture;

every little while down came the rain, now a pour, then a drizzle--a

depressing sort of day.

Our village of Highland, in the Ramapo, is perfectly enchanting in clear

brilliant weather, and turn where you will, you catch a fine view of

mountain, or valley, or brown stream, or tumbling cascade. On a snowy

winter day it is divine; but in the fall, when there is mist hanging its

gray pall over the landscape, or there are dark low-hanging clouds with

steady pouring rain, the weather, it must be owned, is depressing in

Highland. That is, if one cares about weather. Some people always rise

above it, which is the better way.

I must explain mamma's interest in the Wainwrights. They are our dear

friends, but not our neighbors, as they were before Dr. Wainwright went

to live at Wishing-Brae, which was a family place left him by his

brother; rather a tumble-down old place, but big, and with fields and

meadows around it, and a great rambling garden. The Wainwrights were

expecting their middle daughter, Grace, home from abroad.

Few people in Highland have ever been abroad; New York, or Chicago, or

Omaha, or Denver is far enough away for most of us. But Grace

Wainwright, when she was ten, had been borrowed by a childless uncle and

aunt, who wanted to adopt her, and begged Dr. Wainwright, who had seven

children and hardly any money, to give them one child on whom they could

spend their heaps of money. But no, the doctor and Mrs. Wainwright

wouldn't hear of anything except a loan, and so Grace had been lent, in

all, eight years; seven she had spent at school, and one in Paris,

Berlin, Florence, Venice, Rome, the Alps. Think of it, how splendid and

charming!

Uncle Ralph and Aunt Hattie did not like to give her up now, but Grace,

we heard, would come. She wanted to see her mother and her own kin;

maybe she felt she ought.

At the Manse we had just finished prayers. Papa was going to his study.

He wore his Friday-morning face--a sort of preoccupied pucker between

his eyebrows, and a far-away look in his eyes. Friday is the day he

finishes up his sermons for Sunday, and, as a matter of course, we never

expect him to be delayed or bothered by our little concerns till he has

them off his mind. Sermons in our house have the right of way.

Prayers had been shorter than usual this morning, and we had sung only

two stanzas of the hymn, instead of four or five. Usually if mamma is

anxious about anybody or anything, papa is all sympathy and attention.

But not on a Friday. He paid no heed either to her tone or her words,

but only said impressively:

"My love, please do not allow me to be disturbed in any way you can

avoid between this and the luncheon hour; and keep the house as quiet as

you can. I dislike being troublesome, but I've had so many interruptions

this week; what with illness in the congregation, and funerals, and

meetings every night, my work for Sunday is not advanced very far.

Children, I rely on you all to help me," and with a patient smile, and a

little wave of the hand quite characteristic, papa withdrew.

We heard him moving about in his study, which was over the sitting-room,

and then there came a scrape of his chair upon the floor, and a

creaking sound as he settled into it by the table. Papa was safely out

of the way for the next four or five hours. I would have to be a

watchdog to keep knocks from his door.

"I should think," said Amy, pertly, tossing her curls, "that when papa

has so much to do he'd just go and do it, not stand here talking and

wasting time. It's the same thing week after week. Such a martyr."

"Amy," said mamma, severely, "don't speak of your father in that

flippant manner. Why are _you_ lounging here so idly? Gather up the

books, put this room in order, and then, with Laura's assistance, I

would like you this morning to clean the china closet. Every cup and

saucer and plate must be taken down and wiped separately, after being

dipped into hot soap-suds and rinsed in hot water; the shelves all

washed and dried, and the corners carefully gone over. See how thorough

you can be, my dears," said mamma in her sweetest tones. I wondered

whether she had known that Amy had planned to spend the rainy morning

finishing the hand-screen she is painting for grandmother's birthday.

From her looks nothing could be gathered. Mamma's blue eyes can look as

unconscious of intention as a child's when she chooses to reprove, and

yet does not wish to seem censorious. Amy is fifteen, and very

headstrong, as indeed we all are, but even Amy never dreams of hinting

that she would like to do something else than what mamma prefers when

mamma arranges things in her quiet yet masterful fashion. Dear little

mamma. All her daughters except Jessie are taller than herself; but

mother is queen of the Manse, nevertheless.

Amy went off, having with a few deft touches set the library in order,

piling the Bibles and hymn books on the little stand in the corner, and

giving a pat here and a pull there to the cushions, rugs, and curtains,

went pleasantly to begin her hated task of going over the china closet.

Laura followed her.

Elbert, our seventeen-year-old brother, politely held open the door for

the girls to pass through.

"You see, Amy dear," he said, compassionately, "what comes on reflecting

upon papa. It takes some people a long while to learn wisdom."

Amy made a little _moue_ at him.

"I don't mind particularly," she said. "Come, Lole, when a thing's to be

done, the best way is to do it and not fuss nor fret. I ought not to

have said that; I knew it would vex dear mamma; but papa provokes me so

with his solemn directions, as if the whole house did not always hold

its breath when he is in the study. Come, Lole, let's do this work as

well as we can." Amy's sunshiny disposition matches her quick temper.

She may say a quick word on the impulse of the moment, but she makes up

for it afterward by her loving ways.

"It isn't the week for doing this closet, Amy," said Laura. "Why didn't

you tell mamma so? You wanted to paint in your roses and clematis before

noon, didn't you? I think it mean. Things are so contrary," and Laura

sighed.

"Oh, never mind, dear! this won't be to do next week. I think mamma was

displeased and spoke hastily. Mamma and I are so much alike that we

understand one another. I suppose I am just the kind of girl she used to

be, and I hope I'll be the kind of woman she is when I grow up. I'm

imitating mother all I can."

Laura laughed. "Well, Amy, you'd never be so popular in your husband's

congregation as mamma is--never. You haven't so much tact; I don't

believe you'll ever have it, either."

"I haven't yet, of course; but I'd have more tact if I were a grown-up

lady and married to a clergyman. I don't think, though, I'll ever marry

a minister," said Amy, with grave determination, handing down a

beautiful salad-bowl, which Laura received in both hands with the

reverence due to a treasured possession. "It's the prettiest thing we

own," said Amy, feeling the smooth satiny surface lovingly, and holding

it up against her pink cheek. "Isn't it scrumptious, Laura?"

"Well," said Laura, "it's nice, but not so pretty as the tea-things

which belonged to Great-aunt Judith. They are my pride. This does not

compare."

"Well, perhaps not in one way, for they are family pieces, and prove we

came out of the ark. But the salad-bowl is a beauty. I don't object to

the care of china myself. It is ladies' work. It surprises me that

people ever are willing to trust their delicate china to clumsy maids. I

wouldn't if I had gems and gold like a princess, instead of being only

the daughter of a poor country clergyman. I'd always wash my own nice

dishes with my own fair hands."

"That shows your Southern breeding," said Laura. "Southern women always

look after their china and do a good deal of the dainty part of the

housekeeping. Mamma learned that when she was a little girl living in

Richmond."

"'Tisn't only Southern breeding," said Amy. "Our Holland-Dutch ancestors

had the same elegant ways of taking care of their property. I'm writing

a paper on 'Dutch Housewifery' for the next meeting of the

Granddaughters of the Revolution, and you'll find out a good many

interesting points if you listen to it."

"Amy Raeburn!" exclaimed Laura, admiringly, "I expect you'll write a

book one of these days."

"I certainly intend to," replied Amy, with dignity, handing down a fat

Dutch cream-jug, and at the moment incautiously jarring the step-ladder,

so that, cream-jug and all, she fell to the floor. Fortunately the

precious pitcher escaped injury; but Amy's sleeve caught on a nail, and

as she jerked it away in her fall it loosened a shelf and down crashed a

whole pile of the second-best dinner plates, making a terrific noise,

which startled the whole house.

Papa, in his study, groaned, and probably tore in two a closely written

sheet of notes. Mamma and the girls came flying in. Amy picked herself

up from the floor; there was a great red bruise and a scratch on her

arm.

"Oh, you poor child!" said mother, gauging the extent of the accident

with a rapid glance. "Never mind," she said, relieved; "there isn't much

harm done. Those are the plates the Ladies' Aid Society in Archertown

gave me the year Frances was born. I never admired them. When some

things go they carry a little piece of my heart with them, but I don't

mind losing donation china. Are you hurt, Amy?"

"A bruise and a scratch--nothing to signify. Here comes Lole with the

arnica. I don't care in the least since I haven't wrecked any of our

Colonial heirlooms. Isn't it fortunate, mother, that we haven't broken

or lost anything _this_ congregation has bestowed?"

"Yes, indeed," said mamma, gravely. "There, gather up the pieces, and

get them out of the way before we have a caller."

In the Manse callers may be looked for at every possible time and

season, and some of them have eyes in the backs of their heads. For

instance, Miss Florence Frick or Mrs. Elbridge Geary seems to be able to

see through closed doors. And there is Mrs. Cyril Bannington Barnes, who

thinks us all so extravagant, and does not hesitate to notice how often

we wear our best gowns, and wonders to our faces where mamma's last

winter's new furs came from, and is very much astonished and quite angry

that papa should insist on sending all his boys to college. But, there,

this story isn't going to be a talk about papa's people. Mamma wouldn't

approve of that, I am sure.

Everybody sat down comfortably in the dining-room, while Frances and

Mildred took hold and helped Amy and Laura finish the closet. Everybody

meant mamma, Mildred, Frances, Elbert, Lawrence, Sammy and Jessie.

Somehow, a downright rainy day in autumn, with a bit of a blaze on the

hearth, makes you feel like dropping into talk and staying in one place,

and discussing eventful things, such as Grace Wainwright's return, and

what her effect would be on her family, and what effect they would have

on her.

"I really do not think Grace is in the very least bit prepared for the

life she is coming to," said Frances.

"No," said mamma, "I fear not. But she is coming to her duty, and one

can always do that."

"For my part," said Elbert, "I see nothing so much amiss at the

Wainwrights. They're a jolly set, and go when you will, you find them

having good times. Of course they are in straitened circumstances."

"And Grace has been accustomed to lavish expenditure," said Mildred.

"If she had remained in Paris, with her Uncle Ralph and Aunt Gertrude

she would have escaped a good deal of hardship," said Lawrence.

"Oh," mamma broke in, impatiently, "how short-sighted you young people

are! You look at everything from your own point of view. It is not of

Grace I am thinking so much. I am considering her mother and the girls

and her poor, worn-out father. I couldn't sleep last night, thinking of

the Wainwrights. Mildred, you might send over a nut-cake and some soft

custard and a glass of jelly, when it stops raining, and the last number

of the "Christian Herald" and of "Harper's Monthly" might be slipped

into the basket, too--that is, if you have all done with it. Papa and I

have finished reading the serial and we will not want it again. There's

so much to read in this house."

"I'll attend to it, mamma," said Mildred. "Now what can I do to help you

before I go to my French lesson."

"Nothing, you sweetest of dears," said mother, tenderly. Mildred was her

great favorite, and nobody was jealous, for we all adored our tall, fair

sister.

So we scattered to our different occupations and did not meet again till

luncheon was announced.

Does somebody ask which of the minister's eight children is telling this

story? If you must know, I am Frances, and what I did not myself see was

all told to me at the time it happened and put down in my journal.

CHAPTER II.

AT WISHING-BRAE.

Grace Wainwright, a slender girl, in a trim tailor-made gown, stepped

off the train at Highland Station. She was pretty and distinguished

looking. Nobody would have passed her without observing that. Her four

trunks and a hat-box had been swung down to the platform by the

baggage-master, and the few passengers who, so late in the fall, stopped

at this little out-of-the-way station in the hills had all tramped

homeward through the rain, or been picked up by waiting conveyances.

There was no one to meet Grace, and it made her feel homesick and

lonely. As she stood alone on the rough unpainted boardwalk in front of

the passenger-room a sense of desolation crept into the very marrow of

her bones. She couldn't understand it, this indifference on the part of

her family. The ticket agent came out and was about to lock the door. He

was going home to his mid-day dinner.

"I am Grace Wainwright," she said, appealing to him. "Do you not suppose

some one is coming to meet me?"

"Oh, you be Dr. Wainwright's darter that's been to foreign parts, be

you? Waal, miss, the doctor he can't come because he's been sent for to

set Mr. Stone's brother's child's arm that he broke jumping over a

fence, running away from a snake. But I guess somebody'll be along soon.

Like enough your folks depended on Mr. Burden; he drives a stage, and

reckons to meet passengers, and take up trunks, but he's sort o'

half-baked, and he's afraid to bring his old horse out when it

rains--'fraid it'll catch the rheumatiz. You better step over to my

house 'long o' me; somebody'll be here in the course of an hour."

Grace's face flushed. It took all her pride to keep back a rush of

angry, hurt tears. To give up Paris, and Uncle Ralph and Aunt Hattie,

and her winter of music and art, and come to the woods and be treated in

this way! She was amazed and indignant. But her native good sense showed

her there was, there must be, some reason for what looked like neglect.

Then came a tender thought of mamma. She wouldn't treat her thus.

"Did a telegram from me reach Dr. Wainwright last evening?" Grace

inquired, presently.

The agent fidgeted and looked confused. Then he said coolly: "That

explains the whole situation now. A dispatch did come, and I calc'lated

to send it up to Wishin'-Brae by somebody passing, but nobody came along

goin' in that direction, and I clean forgot it. Its too bad; but you

step right over to my house and take a bite. There'll be a chance to

get you home some time to-day."

At this instant, "Is this Grace Wainwright?" exclaimed a sweet, clear

voice, and two arms were thrown lovingly around the tired girl. "I am

Mildred Raeburn, and this is Lawrence, my brother. We were going over to

your house, and may we take you? I was on an errand there for mamma.

Your people didn't know just when to look for you, dear, not hearing

definitely, but we all supposed you would come on the five o'clock

train. Mr. Slocum, please see that Miss Wainwright's trunks are put

under cover till Burden's express can be sent for them." Mildred stepped

into the carryall after Grace, giving her another loving hug.

"Mildred, how dear of you to happen here at just the right moment, like

an angel of light! You always did that. I remember when we were little

things at school. It is ages since I was here, but nothing has changed."

"Nothing ever changes in Highland, Grace. I am sorry you see it again

for the first on this wet and dismal day. But to-morrow will be

beautiful, I am sure."

"Lawrence, you have grown out of my recollection," said Grace. "But

we'll soon renew our acquaintance. I met your chum at Harvard, Edward

Gerald at Geneva, and he drove with our party to Paris." Then, turning

to Mildred, "My mother is no better, is she? Dear, patient mother! I've

been away too long."

"She is no better," replied Mildred, gently, "but then she is no worse.

Mrs. Wainwright will be so happy when she has her middle girl by her

side again. She's never gloomy, though. It's wonderful."

They drove on silently. Mildred took keen notice of every detail of

Grace's dress--the blue cloth gown and jacket, simple but modish, with

an air no Highland dressmaker could achieve, for who on earth out of

Paris can make anything so perfect as a Paris gown, in which a pretty

girl is sure to look like a dream? The little toque on the small head

was perched over braids of smooth brown hair, the gloves and boots were

well-fitting, and Grace Wainwright carried herself finely. This was a

girl who could walk ten miles on a stretch, ride a wheel or a horse at

pleasure, drive, play tennis or golf, or do whatever else a girl of the

period can. She was both strong and lovely, one saw that.

What could she do besides? Mildred, with the reins lying loosely over

old Whitefoot's back, thought and wondered. There was opportunity for

much at the Brae.

Lawrence and Grace chatted eagerly as the old pony climbed hills and

descended valleys, till at last he paused at a rise in the path, then

went on, and there, the ground dipping down like the sides of a cup, in

the hollow at the bottom lay the straggling village.

"Yes," said Grace, "I remember it all. There is the post-office, and

Doremus' store, and the little inn, the church with the white spire, the

school-house, and the Manse. Drive faster, please, Mildred. I want to

see my mother. Just around that fir grove should be the old home of

Wishing-Brae."

Tears filled Grace's eyes. Her heart beat fast.

The Wainwrights' house stood at the end of a long willow-bordered lane.

As the manse carryall turned into this from the road a shout was heard

from the house. Presently a rush of children tearing toward the

carriage, and a chorus of "Hurrah, here is Grace!" announced the delight

of the younger ones at meeting their sister. Mildred drew up at the

doorstep, Lawrence helped Grace out, and a fair-haired older sister

kissed her and led her to the mother sitting by the window in a great

wheeled chair.

The Raeburns hurried away. As they turned out of the lane they met Mr.

Burden with his cart piled high with Grace's trunks.

"Where shall my boxes be carried, sister?" said Grace, a few minutes

later. She was sitting softly stroking her mother's thin white hand,

the mother gazing with pride and joy into the beautiful blooming face of

her stranger girl, who had left her a child.

"My middle girl, my precious middle daughter," she said, her eyes

filling with tears. "Miriam, Grace, and Eva, now I have you all about

me, my three girls. I am a happy woman, Gracie."

"Hallo!" came up the stairs; "Burden's waiting to be paid. He says it's

a dollar and a quarter. Who's got the money? There never is any money in

this house."

"Hush, Robbie!" cried Miriam, looking over the railing. "The trunks will

have to be brought right up here, of course. Set them into our room, and

after they are unpacked we'll put them into the garret. Mother, is there

any change in your pocketbook?"

"Don't trouble mamma," said Grace, waking up to the fact that there was

embarrassment in meeting this trifling charge. "I have money;" and she

opened her dainty purse for the purpose--a silvery alligator thing with

golden clasps and her monogram on it in jewels, and took out the money

needed. Her sisters and brother had a glimpse of bills and silver in

that well-filled purse.

"Jiminy!" said Robbie to James. "Did you see the money she's got? Why,

father never had as much as that at once."

Which was very true. How should a hard-working country doctor have money

to carry about when his bills were hard to collect, when anyway he never

kept books, and when his family, what with feeding and clothing and

schooling expenses, cost more every year than he could possibly earn?

Poor Doctor Wainwright! He was growing old and bent under the load of

care and expense he had to carry. While he couldn't collect his own

bills, because it is unprofessional for a doctor to dun, people did not

hesitate to dun him. All this day, as he drove from house to house, over

the weary miles, up hill and down, there was a song in his heart. He was

a sanguine man. A little bit of hope went a long way in encouraging this

good doctor, and he felt sure that better days would dawn for him now

that Grace had come home. A less hopeful temperament would have been apt

to see rocks in the way, the girl having been so differently educated

from the others, and accustomed to luxuries which they had never known.

Not so her father. He saw everything in rose-color.

As Doctor Wainwright toward evening turned his horse's head homeward he

was rudely stopped on a street corner by a red-faced, red-bearded man,

who presented him with a bill. The man grumbled out sullenly, with a

scowl on his face:

"Doctor Wainwright, I'm sorry to bother you, but this bill has been

standing a long time. It will accommodate me very much if you can let me

have something on account next Monday. I've got engagements to

meet--pressing engagements, sir."

"I'll do my best, Potter," said the doctor. Where he was to get any

money by Monday he did not know, but, as Potter said, the money was due.

He thrust the bill into his coat pocket and drove on, half his pleasure

in again seeing his child clouded by this encounter. Pulling his gray

mustache, the world growing dark as the sun went down, the father's

spirits sank to zero. He had peeped at the bill. It was larger than he

had supposed, as bills are apt to be. Two hundred dollars! And he

couldn't borrow, and there was nothing more to mortgage. And Grace's

coming back had led him to sanction the purchase of a new piano, to be

paid for by instalments. The piano had been seen going home a few days

before, and every creditor the doctor had, seeing its progress, had been

quick to put in his claim, reasoning very naturally that if Doctor

Wainwright could afford to buy a new piano, he could equally afford to

settle his old debts, and must be urged to do so.

The old mare quickened her pace as she saw her stable door ahead of

her. The lines hung limp and loose in her master's hands. Under the

pressure of distress about this dreadful two hundred dollars he had

forgotten to be glad that Grace was again with them.

Doctor Wainwright was an easy-going as well as a hopeful sort of man,

but he was an honest person, and he knew that creditors have a right to

be insistent. It distressed him to drag around a load of debt. For days

together the poor doctor had driven a long way round rather than to pass

Potter's store on the main street, the dread of some such encounter and

the shame of his position weighing heavily on his soul. It was the

harder for him that he had made it a rule never to appear anxious before

his wife. Mrs. Wainwright had enough to bear in being ill and in pain.

The doctor braced himself and threw back his shoulders as if casting off

a load, as the mare, of her own accord, stopped at the door.

The house was full of light. Merry voices overflowed in rippling speech

and laughter. Out swarmed the children to meet papa, and one sweet girl

kissed him over and over. "Here I am," she said, "your middle daughter,

dearest. Here I am."

CHAPTER III.

GRACE TAKES A HAND.

"Mother, darling, may I have a good long talk with you to-day, a

confidential talk, we two by ourselves?"

"Yes, Grace, I shall be delighted."

"And when can it be? You always have so many around you, dear; and no

wonder, this is the centre of the house, this chair, which is your

throne."

"Well, let me see," said Mrs. Wainwright, considering. "After dinner the

children go to Sunday-school, and papa has always a few Sunday patients

whom he must visit. Between two and four I am always alone on Sunday and

we can have a chat then. Mildred and Frances will probably walk home

with Miriam and want to carry you off to the Manse to tea."

"Not on my first home Sunday, mamma," said Grace. "I must have every

littlest bit of that here, though I do expect to have good times with

the Manse girls. Is Mrs. Raeburn as sweet as ever? I remember her

standing at the station and waving me good-bye when I went away with

auntie, and Amy, the dearest wee fairy, was by her side."

"Amy is full of plans," said Mrs. Wainwright. "She is going to the

League to study art if her mother can spare her. Mildred and Frances

want to go on with their French, and one of the little boys, I forget

which, has musical talent; but there is no one in Highland who can teach

the piano. The Raeburn children are all clever and bright."

"They could hardly help being that, mamma, with such a father and

mother, and the atmosphere of such a home."

All this time there was the hurry and bustle of Sunday morning in a

large family where every one goes to church, and the time between

breakfast and half-past ten is a scramble. Grace kept quietly on with

the work she had that morning assumed, straightening the quilts on the

invalid's chair, bringing her a new book, and setting a little vase with

a few late flowers on the table by her side. Out of Grace's trunks there

had been produced gifts for the whole household, and many pretty things,

pictures and curios, which lent attractiveness to the parlor, grown

shabby and faded with use and poverty, but still a pretty and homelike

parlor, as a room which is lived in by well-bred people must always be.

"Well, when the rest have gone to Sunday-school, and papa has started on

his afternoon rounds, I'll come here and take my seat, where I used to

when I was a wee tot, and we'll have an old-fashioned confab. Now, if

the girls have finished dressing, I'll run and get ready for church. I'm

so glad all through that I can again hear one of Dr. Raeburn's helpful

sermons."

Mrs. Wainwright smiled.

"To hear Frances' and Amy's chatter, one would not think that so great a

privilege, Grace."

"Oh, that amounts to nothing, mamma! Let somebody else criticise their

father and you'd hear another story. Ministers' families are apt to be a

little less appreciative than outsiders, they are so used to the

minister in all his moods. But Dr. Raeburn's "Every Morning" has been my

companion book to the Bible ever since I was old enough to like and need

such books, and though I was so small when I went that I remember only

the music of his voice, I want to hear him preach again."

"Grace," came a call from the floor above, "you can have your turn at

the basin and the looking-glass if you'll come this minute. Hurry, dear,

I'm keeping Eva off by strategy. You have your hair to do and I want you

to hook my collar. You must have finished in mother's room, and it's my

belief you two are just chattering. Hurry, please, dear!"

"Yes, Miriam, I'm coming. But let Eva go on. It takes only a second for

me to slip into my jacket. I never dress for church," she explained to

her mother. "This little black gown is what I always wear on Sundays."

"I wish you could have a room of your own, daughter. It's hard after

you've had independence so long to be sandwiched in between Miriam and

Eva. But we could not manage another room just now." The mother looked

wistful.

"I'm doing very well, mamma. Never give it a thought. Why, it's fun

being with my sisters as I always used to be. Miriam is the one entitled

to a separate room, if anybody could have it."

Yet she stifled a sigh as she ran up to the large, ill-appointed chamber

which the three sisters used in common.

When you have had your own separate, individual room for years, with

every dainty belonging that is possible for a luxurious taste to

provide, it is a bit of a trial to give it up and be satisfied with a

cot at one end of a long, barnlike place, with no chance for solitude,

and only one mirror and one pitcher and basin to serve the needs of

three persons. It can be borne, however, as every small trial in this

world may, if there is a cheerful spirit and a strong, loving heart to

fall back on. Besides, most things may be improved if you know how to go

about the task. The chief thing is first to accept the situation, and

then bravely to undertake the changing it for the better.

"Doctor," said the mother, as her husband brushed his thin gray hair in

front of his chiffonier, while the merry sound of their children's

voices came floating down to them through open doors, "thank the dear

Lord for me in my stead when you sit in the pew to-day. I'll be with you

in my thoughts. It's such a blessed thing that our little middle girl is

at home with us."

The doctor sighed. That bill in his pocket was burning like fire in his

soul. He was not a cent nearer meeting it than he had been on Friday,

and to-morrow was but twenty-four hours off. Yesterday he had tried to

borrow from a cousin, but in vain.

"I fail to see a blessing anywhere, Charlotte," he said. "Things

couldn't well be worse. This is a dark bit of the road." He checked

himself. Why had he saddened her? It was not his custom.

"When things are at the very worst, Jack, I've always noticed that they

take a turn for the better. 'It may not be my way; it may not be thy

way; but yet in His own way the Lord will provide.'" Mrs. Wainwright

spoke steadily and cheerfully. Her thin cheeks flushed with feeling. Her

tones were strong. Her smile was like a sunbeam. Doctor Wainwright's

courage rose.

"Anyway, darling wife, you are the best blessing a man ever had." He

stooped and kissed her like a lover.

Presently the whole family, Grace walking proudly at her father's side,

took their way across the fields to church.

Perhaps you may have seen lovely Sunday mornings, but I don't think

there is a place in the whole world where Sunday sunshine is as clear,

Sunday stillness as full of rest, Sunday flowers as fragrant, as in our

hamlet among the hills, our own dear Highland. Far and near the roads

wind past farms and fields, with simple, happy homes nestling under the

shadow of the mountains. You hear the church bells, and their sound is

soft and clear as they break the golden silence. Groups of people,

rosy-cheeked children, and sturdy boys and pleasant looking men and

women pass you walking to church, exchanging greetings. Carriage loads

of old and young drive on, all going the same way. It makes me think of

a verse in the Psalm which my old Scottish mother loved:

"I joyed when to the house of God

'Go up,' they said to me,

'Jerusalem, within thy gates

Our feet shall standing be.'"

"Oh, Paradise! oh, Paradise!" hummed Amy Raeburn that same Sunday

morning as, the last to leave the Manse, she ran after her mother and

sisters. The storm of the two previous days had newly brightened the

landscape. Every twig and branch shone, and the red and yellow maple

leaves, the wine-color of the oak, the burnished copper of the beech,

were like jewels in the sun.

"If it were not Sunday I would dance," said Amy, subduing her steps to a

sober walk as she saw approaching the majestic figure of Mrs. Cyril

Bannington Barnes.

"You are late, Amy Raeburn," said this lady. "Your father went to church

a half-hour ago, and the bell is tolling. Young people should cultivate

a habit of being punctual. This being a few minutes behind time is very

reprehensible--very rep-re-hen-sible indeed, my love."

"Yes, ma'am," replied Amy, meekly, walking slowly beside the also tardy

Mrs. Barnes.

"I dare say," continued Mrs. Barnes, "that you are thinking to yourself

that I also am late. But, Amy, I have no duty to the parish. I am an

independent woman. You are a girl, and the minister's daughter at that.

You are in a very different position. I do hope, Amy Raeburn, that you

will not be late another Sunday morning. Your mother is not so good a

disciplinarian as I could wish."

"No, Mrs. Barnes?" said Amy, with a gentle questioning manner, which

would have irritated the matron still more had their progress not now

ceased on the church steps. Amy, both resentful and amused, fluttered,

like an alarmed chick to the brooding mother-wing, straight to the

minister's pew. Mrs. Barnes, smoothing ruffled plumes, proceeded with

stately and impressive tread to her place in front of the pulpit.

Doctor Raeburn was rising to pronounce the invocation. The church was

full. Amy glanced over to the Wainwright pew, and saw Grace, and smiled.

Into Amy's mind stole a text she was fond of, quite as if an angel had

spoken it, and she forgot that she had been ruffled the wrong way by

Mrs. Cyril Bannington Barnes. This was the text:

"Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good."

"You are a hateful, wicked girl, Amy," said Amy to herself. "Why, when

you have so much to make you happy, are you so easily upset by a fretful

old lady, who is, after all, your friend, and would stand by you if

there were need?"

Amy did not know it, but it was Grace's sweet and tranquil look that had

brought the text to her mind. One of the dearest things in life is that

we may do good and not know that we are doing it.

When the Sunday hush fell on the house of which Mrs. Wainwright had

spoken Grace came softly tapping at the door.

"Yes, dear," called her mother; "come right in."

"Mamma," said Grace, after a few minutes, "will you tell me plainly, if

you don't mind, what is worrying papa? I don't mean generally, but what

special trouble is on his mind to-day?"

"Potter's bill, I have no doubt," said the mother, quietly. "Other

troubles come and go, but there is always Potter's bill in the

background. And every little while it crops up and gets into the front."

"What is Potter's bill, dear mamma, and how do we come to owe it?"

"I can't fully explain to you, my child, how it comes to be so large.

When Mr. Potter's father was living and carrying on the business, he

used to say to your father: 'Just get all you want here, doctor; never

give yourself a thought; pay when you can and what you can. We come to

you for medical advice and remedies, and we'll strike a balance

somehow.' The Potters have during years had very little occasion for a

doctor's services, and we, with this great family, have had to have

groceries, shoes, and every other thing, and Potter's bill has kept

rolling up like a great snowball, bit by bit. We pay something now and

then. I sold my old sideboard that came to me from my grandparents, and

paid a hundred dollars on it six months ago. Old Mr. Potter died. Rufus

reigns in his stead, as the Bible says, and he wants to collect his

money. I do not blame him, Grace, but he torments poor papa. There are

two hundred dollars due now, and papa has been trying to get money due

him, and to pay Rufus fifty dollars, but he's afraid he can't raise the

money."

Grace reflected. Then she asked a question. "Dear mamma, don't think me

prying, but is Potter's the only pressing obligation on papa just now?"

Mrs. Wainwright hesitated. Then she answered, a little slowly, "No,

Grace, there are other accounts; but Potter's is the largest."

"I ask, because I can help my father," said Grace, modestly. "Uncle

Ralph deposited five hundred dollars to my credit in a New York bank on

my birthday. The money is mine, to do with absolutely as I please. I

have nearly fifty dollars in my trunk. Uncle and auntie have always

given me money lavishly. Papa can settle Potter's account to-morrow. I'm

only too thankful I have the money. To think that money can do so much

toward making people happy or making them miserable! Then, mother dear,

we'll go into papa's accounts and see how near I can come to relieving

the present state of affairs; and if papa will consent, we'll collect

his bills, and then later, I've another scheme--that is a fine,

sweet-toned piano in the parlor. I mean to give lessons."

"Grace, it was an extravagance in our circumstances to get that piano,

but the girls were so tired of the old one; it was worn out, a tin pan,

and this is to be paid for on easy terms, so much a month."

Grace hated to have her mother to apologize in this way. She hastened to

say, "I'm glad it's here, and don't think me conceited, but I've had the

best instruction uncle could secure for me here, and a short course in

Berlin, and now I mean to make it of some use. I believe I can get

pupils."

"Not many in Highland, I fear, Grace."

"If not in Highland, in New York. Leave that to me."

Mrs. Wainwright felt as if she had been taking a tonic. To the lady

living her days out in her own chamber, and unaccustomed to excitement,

there was something very surprising and very stimulating too in the

swift way of settling things and the fearlessness of this young girl.

Though she had yielded very reluctantly to her brother's wish to keep

Grace apart from her family and wholly his own for so many years, she

now saw there was good in it. Her little girl had developed into a

resolute, capable and strong sort of young woman, who could make use of

whatever tools her education had put into her hands.

"This hasn't been quite the right kind of Sunday talk, mother," said

Grace, "but I haven't been here three days without seeing there's a

cloud, and I don't like to give up to clouds. I'm like the old woman who

must take her broom and sweep the cobwebs out of the sky."

"God helping you, my dear, you will succeed. You have swept some cobwebs

out of my sky already."

"God helping me, yes, dear. Thank you for saying that. Now don't you

want me to sing to you? I'll darken your room and set the door ajar, and

then I'll go to the parlor and play soft, rippling, silvery things, and

sing to you, and you will fall asleep while I'm singing, and have a

lovely nap before they all come home."

As Grace went down the stairs, she paused a moment at the door of the

big dining-room, "large as a town hall," her father sometimes said.

Everything at Wishing-Brae was of ample size--great rooms, lofty

ceilings, big fire-places, broad windows.

"I missed the sideboard, the splendid old mahogany piece with its deep

winy lustre, and the curious carved work. Mother must have grieved to

part with it. Surely uncle and aunt couldn't have known of these

straits. Well, I'm at home now, and they need somebody to manage for

them. Uncle always said I had a business head. God helping me, I'll pull

my people out of the slough of despond."

The young girl went into the parlor, where the amber light from the

west was beginning to fall upon the old Wainwright portraits, the

candelabra with their prisms pendent, and the faded cushions and rugs.

Playing softly, as she had said, singing sweetly "Abide with me" and

"Sun of my soul," the mother was soothed into a peaceful little

half-hour of sleep, in which she dreamed that God had sent her an angel

guest, whose name was Grace.

CHAPTER IV.

TWO LITTLE SCHOOLMARMS.

"And so you are your papa's good fairy? How happy you must be! How

proud!" Amy's eyes shone as she talked to Grace, and smoothed down a

fold of the pretty white alpaca gown which set off her friend's dainty

beauty. The girls were in my mother's room at the Manse, and Mrs.

Raeburn had left them together to talk over plans, while she went to the

parlor to entertain a visitor who was engaged in getting up an autumn

_fête_ for a charitable purpose. Nothing of this kind was ever done

without mother's aid.

There were few secrets between Wishing-Brae and the Manse, and Mrs.

Wainwright had told our mother how opportunely Grace had been able to

assist her father in his straits. Great was our joy.

"You must remember, dear," said mamma, when she returned from seeing

Miss Gardner off, "that your purse is not exhaustless, though it is a

long one for a girl. Debts have a way of eating up bank accounts; and

what will you do when your money is gone if you still find that the wolf

menaces the door at Wishing-Brae?"

"That is what I want to consult you about, Aunt Dorothy." (I ought to

have said that our mother was Aunt Dorothy to the children at the Brae,

and more beloved than many a real auntie, though one only by courtesy.)

"Frances knows my ambitions," Grace went on. "I mean to be a money-maker

as well as a money-spender; and I have two strings to my bow. First, I'd

like to give interpretations."

The mother looked puzzled. "Interpretations?" she said. "Of what,

pray?--Sanscrit or Egyptian or Greek? Are you a seeress or a witch, dear

child?"

"Neither. In plain English I want to read stories and poems to my

friends and to audiences--Miss Wilkins' and Mrs. Stuart's beautiful

stories, and the poems of Holmes and Longfellow and others who speak to

the heart. Not mere elocutionary reading, but simple reading, bringing

out the author's meaning and giving people pleasure. I would charge an

admission fee, and our dining-room would hold a good many; but I ought

to have read somewhere else first, and to have a little background of

city fame before I ask Highland neighbors to come and hear me. This is

my initial plan. I could branch out."

To the mother the new idea did not at once commend itself. She knew

better than we girls did how many twenty-five-cent tickets must be sold

to make a good round sum in dollars. She knew the thrifty people of

Highland looked long at a quarter before they parted with it for mere

amusement, and still further, she doubted whether Dr. Wainwright would

like the thing. But Amy clapped her hands gleefully. She thought it

fine.

"You must give a studio reading," she said. "I can manage that, mother;

if Miss Antoinette Drury will lend her studio, and we send out

invitations for 'Music and Reading, and Tea at Five,' the prestige part

will be taken care of. The only difficulty that I can see is that Grace

would have to go to a lot of places and travel about uncomfortably; and

then she'd need a manager. Wouldn't she, Frances?"

"I see no trouble," said I, "in her being her own manager. She would go

to a new town with a letter to the pastor of the leading church, or his

wife, call in at the newspaper office and get a puff; puffs are always

easily secured by enterprising young women, and they help to fill up the

paper besides. Then she would hire a hall and pay for it out of her

profits, and the business could be easily carried forward."

"Is this the New Woman breaking her shell?" said mother. "I don't think

I quite like the interpretation scheme either as Amy or as you outline

it, though I am open to persuasion. Here is the doctor. Let us hear what

he says."

It was not Dr. Wainwright, but my father, Dr. Raeburn, except on a

Friday, the most genial of men. Amy perched herself on his knee and ran

her slim fingers through his thick dark hair. To him our plans were

explained, and he at once gave them his approval.

"As I understand you, Gracie," Dr. Raeburn said, "you wish this reading

business as a stepping-stone. You would form classes, would you not? And

your music could also be utilized. You had good instruction, I fancy,

both here and over the water."

"Indeed, yes, Dr. Raeburn; and I could give lessons in music, but they

wouldn't bring me in much, here at least."

"Come to my study," said the doctor, rising. "Amy, you have ruffled up

my hair till I look like a cherub before the flood. Come, all of you,

Dorothy and the kids."

"You don't call us kids, do you, papa?"

"Young ladies, then, at your service," said the doctor, with a low bow.

"I've a letter from my old friend, Vernon Hastings. I'll read it to you

when I can find it," said the good man, rummaging among the books,

papers, and correspondence with which his great table was littered.

"Judge Hastings," the doctor went on, "lost his wife in Venice a year

ago. He has three little girls in need, of special advantages; he cannot

bear to send them away to school, and his mother, who lives with him and

orders the house, won't listen to having a resident governess. Ah, this

is the letter!" The doctor read:

"I wish you could help me, Charley, in the dilemma in which I find

myself. Lucy and Helen and my little Madge are to be educated, and

the question is how, when, and where? They are delicate, and I

cannot yet make up my mind to the desolate house I would have

should they go to school. Grandmamma has pronounced against a

governess, and I don't like the day-schools of the town. Now is not

one of your daughters musical, and perhaps another sufficiently

mistress of the elementary branches to teach these babies? I will

pay liberally the right person or persons for three hours' work a

day. But I must have well-bred girls, ladies, to be with my trio of

bairns."

"I couldn't teach arithmetic or drawing," said Grace. "I would be glad

to try my hand at music, and geography and German and French. I might

be weak on spelling."

"I don't think that of you, Grace," said mother.

"I am ashamed to say it's true," said Grace.

Amy interrupted. "How far away is Judge Hastings' home, papa?"

"An hour's ride, Amy dear. No, forty minutes' ride by rail. I'll go and

see him. I've no doubt he will pay you generously, Grace, for your

services, if you feel that you can take up this work seriously."

"I do; I will," said Grace, "and only too thankful will I be to

undertake it; but what about the multiplication table, and the straight

and the curved lines, and Webster's speller?"

"Papa," said Amy, gravely, "please mention me to the judge. I will teach

those midgets the arithmetic and drawing and other fundamental studies

which my gifted friend fears to touch."

"You?" said papa, in surprise.

"Why not, dear?" interposed mamma. "Amy's youth is against her, but the

fact is she can count and she can draw, and I am not afraid to recommend

her, though she is only a chit of fifteen, as to her spelling."

"Going on sixteen, mamma, if you please, and nearly there," Amy

remarked, drawing herself up to her fullest height, at which we all

laughed merrily.

"I taught school myself at sixteen," our mother went on, "and though it

made me feel like twenty-six, I had no trouble with thirty boys and

girls of all ages from four to eighteen. You must remember me, my love,

in the old district school at Elmwood."

"Yes," said papa, "and your overpowering dignity was a sight for gods

and men. All the same you were a darling."

"So she is still." And we pounced upon her in a body and devoured her

with kisses, the sweet little mother.

"Papa," Amy proceeded, when order had been restored, "why not take us

when you go to interview the judge? Then he can behold his future

schoolma'ams, arrange terms, and settle the thing at once. I presume

Grace is anxious as I am to begin her career, now that it looms up

before her. I am in the mood of the youth who bore through snow and ice

the banner with the strange device, 'Excelsior.'"

"In the mean time, good people," said Frances, appearing in the doorway,

"luncheon is served."

We had a pretty new dish--new to us--for luncheon, and as everybody may

not know how nice it is, I'll just mention it in passing.

Take large ripe tomatoes, scoop out the pulp and mix it with finely

minced canned salmon, adding a tiny pinch of salt. Fill the tomatoes

with this mixture, set them in a nest of crisp green lettuce leaves, and

pour a mayonnaise into each ruby cup. The dish is extremely dainty and

inviting, and tastes as good as it looks. It must be very cold.

"But," Doctor Raeburn said, in reply to a remark of mother's that she

was pleased the girls had decided on teaching, it was so womanly and

proper an employment for girls of good family, "I must insist that the

'interpretations' be not entirely dropped. I'll introduce you, my dear,"

he said, "when you give your first recital, and that will make it all

right in the eyes of Highland."

"Thank you, doctor," said Grace. "I would rather have your sanction than

anything else in the world, except papa's approval."

"Why don't your King's Daughters give Grace a boom? You are always

getting up private theatricals, and this is just the right time."

"Lawrence Raeburn you are a trump!" said Amy, flying round to her

brother and giving him a hug. "We'll propose it at the first meeting of

the Ten, and it'll be carried by acclamation."

"Now," said Grace, rising and saying good-afternoon to my mother, with a

courtesy to the rest of us, "I'm going straight home to break ground

there and prepare my mother for great events."

Walking over the fields in great haste, for when one has news to

communicate, one's feet are wings, Grace was arrested by a groan as of

somebody in great pain. She looked about cautiously, but it was several

minutes before she found, lying under the hedge, a boy with a broken

pitcher at his side. He was deadly pale, and great drops of sweat rolled

down his face.

"Oh, you poor boy! What is the matter?" she cried, bending over him in

great concern.

"I've broke mother's best china pitcher," said the lad, in a despairing

voice.

"Poof!" replied Grace. "Pitchers can be mended or replaced. What else is

wrong? You're not groaning over a broken pitcher, surely!"

"You would, if it came over in the _Mayflower_, and was all of your

ancestors' you had left to show that you could be a Colonial Dame.

Ug-gh!" The boy tried to sit up, gasped and fell back in a dead faint.

"Goodness!" said Grace; "he's broken his leg as well as his pitcher.

Colonial Dames! What nonsense! Well, I can't leave him here."

She had her smelling salts in her satchel, but before she could find

them, Grace's satchel being an _omnium gatherum_ of a remarkably

miscellaneous character, the lad came to. A fainting person will usually

regain consciousness soon if laid out flat, with the head a little lower

than the body. I've seen people persist in keeping a fainting friend in

a sitting position, which is very stupid and quite cruel.

"I am Doctor Wainwright's daughter," said Grace, "and I see my father's

gig turning the corner of the road. You shall have help directly. Papa

will know what to do, so lie still where you are."

The lad obeyed, there plainly being nothing else to be done. In a second

Doctor Wainwright, at Grace's flag of distress, a white handkerchief

waving from the top of her parasol, came toward her at the mare's

fastest pace.

"Hello!" he said. "Here's Archie Vanderhoven in a pickle."

"As usual, doctor," said Archie, faintly. "I've broken mother's last

pitcher."

"And your leg, I see," observed the doctor, with professional

directness. "Well, my boy, you must be taken home. Grace, drive home for

me, and tell the boys to bring a cot here as soon as possible. Meanwhile

I'll set Archie's leg. It's only a simple fracture." And the doctor from

his black bag, brought out bandages and instruments. No army surgeon on

the field of battle was quicker and gentler than Doctor Wainwright,

whose skill was renowned all over our country-side.

"What is there about the Vanderhovens?" inquired Grace that night as

they sat by the blaze of hickory logs in the cheery parlor of

Wishing-Brae.

"The Vanderhovens are a decayed family," her father answered. "They were

once very well off and lived in state, and from far and near gay parties

were drawn at Easter and Christmas to dance under their roof. Now they

are run out. This boy and his mother are the last of the line. Archie's

father was drowned in the ford when we had the freshet last spring. The

Ramapo, that looks so peaceful now, overflowed its banks then, and ran

like a mill-race. I don't know how they manage, but Archie is kept at

school, and his mother does everything from ironing white frocks for

summer boarders to making jellies and preserves for people in town, who

send her orders."

"Is she an educated woman?" inquired Grace.

"That she is. Mrs. Vanderhoven is not only highly educated, but very

elegant and accomplished. None of her attainments, except those in the

domestic line, are available, unhappily, when earning a living is in

question, and she can win her bread only by these housekeeping efforts."

"Might I go and see her?"

"Why yes, dear, you and the others not only might, but should. She will

need help. I'll call and consult Mrs. Raeburn about her to-morrow. She

isn't a woman one can treat like a pauper--as well born as any one in

the land, and prouder than Lucifer. It's too bad Archie had to meet with

this accident; but boys are fragile creatures."

And the doctor, shaking the ashes from his pipe, went off to sit with

his wife before going to bed.

"I do wonder," said Grace to Eva, "what the boy was doing with the old

Puritan pitcher, and why a Vanderhoven should have boasted of coming

over in the _Mayflower_?"

Eva said: "They're Dutch and English, Grace. The Vanderhovens are from

Holland, but Archie's mother was a Standish, or something of that sort,

and her kinsfolk, of course, belonged to the _Mayflower_ crowd. I

believe Archie meant to sell that pitcher, and if so, no wonder he broke

his leg. By-the-way, what became of the pieces?"

"I picked them up," said Grace.

CHAPTER V.

CEMENTS AND RIVETS.

"How did we ever consent to let our middle daughter stay away all these

years, mother?" said Dr. Wainwright, addressing his wife.

"I cannot tell how it happened, father," she said, musingly. "I think we

drifted into the arrangement, and you know each year brother was

expected to bring her back Harriet would plan a jaunt or a journey which

kept her away, and then, Jack, we've generally been rather out at the

elbows, and I have been so helpless, that, with our large family, it was

for Grace's good to let her remain where she was so well provided for."

"She's clear grit, isn't she?" said the doctor, admiringly, stalking to

and fro in his wife's chamber. "I didn't half like the notion of her

giving readings; but Charley Raeburn says the world moves and we must

move with it, and now that her object is not purely a selfish one, I

withdraw my opposition. I confess, though, darling, I don't enjoy the

thought that my girls must earn money. I feel differently about the

boys."

"Jack, dear," said his wife, tenderly, always careful not to wound the

feelings of this unsuccessful man who was still so loving and so full of

chivalry, "you needn't mind that in the very least. The girl who doesn't

want to earn money for herself in these days is in the minority. Girls

feel it in the air. They all fret and worry, or most of them do, until

they are allowed to measure their strength and test the commercial worth

of what they have acquired. You are a dear old fossil, Jack. Just look

at it in this way: Suppose Mrs. Vanderhoven, brought up in the purple,

taught to play a little, to embroider a little, to speak a little

French--to do a little of many things and nothing well--had been given

the sort of education that in her day was the right of every gentleman's

son, though denied the gentleman's daughter, would her life be so hard

and narrow and distressful now? Would she be reduced to taking in fine

washing and hemstitching, and canning fruit?"

"Canning fruit, mother dear," said Miriam, who had just come in to

procure fresh towels for the bedrooms, "is a fine occupation. Several

women in the United States are making their fortunes at that. Eva and I,

who haven't Grace's talents, are thinking of taking it up in earnest. I

can make preserves, I rejoice to say."

"When you are ready to begin, you shall have my blessing," said her

father. "I yield to the new order of things." Then as the pretty elder

daughter disappeared, a sheaf of white lavender-perfumed towels over her

arm, he said: "Now, dear, I perceive your point. Archie Vanderhoven's

accident has, however, occurred in the very best possible time for

Grace. The King's Daughters--you know what a breezy Ten they are, with

our Eva and the Raeburns' Amy among them--are going to give a lift to

Archie, not to his mother, who might take offence. All the local talent

of our young people is already enlisted. Our big dining-room is to be

the hall of ceremonies, and I believe they are to have tableaux, music,

readings and refreshments. This will come off on the first moonlight

night, and the proceeds will all go to Archie, to be kept, probably, as

a nest-egg for his college expenses. That mother of his means him to go

through college, you know, if she has to pay the fees by hard work,

washing, ironing, scrubbing, what not."

"I hope the boy's worth it," said Mrs. Wainwright, doubtfully. "Few boys

are."

"The right boy is," said the doctor, firmly. "In our medical association

there's one fellow who is on the way to be a famous surgeon. He's fine,

Jane, the most plucky, persistent man, with the eye, and the nerve, and

the hand, and the delicacy and steadiness of the surgeon born in him,

and confirmed by training. Some of his operations are perfectly

beautiful, beautiful! He'll be famous over the whole world yet. His

mother was an Irish charwoman, and she and he had a terrible tug to

carry him through his studies."

"Is he good to her? Is he grateful?" asked Mrs. Wainwright, much

impressed.

"Good! grateful! I should say so," said the doctor. "She lives like

Queen Victoria, rides in her carriage, dresses in black silk, has four

maids to wait on her. She lives like the first lady in the land, in her

son's house, and he treats her like a lover. He's a man. He was worth

all she did. They say," added the doctor, presently, "that sometimes the

old lady tires of her splendor, sends the maids away to visit their

cousins, and turns in and works for a day or two like all possessed.

She's been seen hanging out blankets on a windy day in the back yard,

with a face as happy as that of a child playing truant."

"Poor, dear old thing," said Mrs. Wainwright. "Well, to go back to our

girlie, she's to be allowed to take her own way, isn't she, and to be as

energetic and work as steadily as she likes?"

"Yes, dearest, she shall, for all I'll do or say to the contrary. And

when my ship comes in I'll pay her back with interest for the loans

she's made me lately."

The doctor went off to visit his patients. His step had grown light,

his face had lost its look of alert yet furtive dread. He looked twenty

years younger. And no wonder. He no longer had to dodge Potter at every

turn, and a big package of receipted bills, endorsed and dated, lay

snugly in his desk, the fear of duns exorcised thereby. A man whose path

has been impeded by the thick underbrush of debts he cannot settle, and

who finds his obligations cancelled, may well walk gaily along the

cleared and brightened roadway, hearing birds sing and seeing blue sky

beaming above his head.

The Ten took hold of the first reading with enthusiasm. Flags were

borrowed, and blazing boughs of maple and oak, with festoons of crimson

blackberry vine and armfuls of golden rod transformed the long room into

a bower. Seats were begged and borrowed, and all the cooks in town made

cake with fury and pride for the great affair. The tickets were sold

without much trouble, and the girls had no end of fun in rehearsing the

tableaux which were decided on as preferable in an entertainment given

by the King's Daughters, because in tableaux everybody has something to

do. Grace was to read from "Young Lucretia" and a poem by Hetta Lord

Hayes Ward, a lovely poem about a certain St. Bridget who trudges up to

heaven's gate, after her toiling years, and finds St. Peter waiting to

set it wide open. The poor, modest thing was an example of Keble's

lovely stanza:

"Meek souls there are who little dream

Their daily life an angel's theme,

Nor that the rod they bear so calm

In heaven may prove a martyr's palm."

Very much astonished at her reception, she is escorted up to the serene

heights by tall seraphs, who treat her with the greatest reverence. By

and by along comes a grand lady, one of Bridget's former employers. She

just squeezes through the gate, and then,

"Down heaven's hill a radiant saint

Comes flying with a palm,

'Are you here, Bridget O'Flaherty?'

St. Bridget cries, 'Yes ma'am.'

"'Oh, teach me, Bridget, the manners, please,

Of the royal court above.'

'Sure, honey dear, you'll aisy learn

Humility and love.'"

I haven't time to tell you all about the entertainment, and there is no

need. You, of course, belong to Tens or to needlework guilds or to

orders of some kind, and if you are a member of the Order of the Round

Table why, of course, you are doing good in some way or other, and good

which enables one to combine social enjoyment and a grand frolic; and

the making of a purseful of gold and silver for a crippled boy, or an

aged widow, or a Sunday-school in Dakota, or a Good Will Farm in Maine,

is a splendid kind of good.

This chapter is about cements and rivets. It is also about the two

little schoolmarms.

"Let us take Mrs. Vanderhoven's pitcher to town when we go to call on

the judge with father," said Amy. "Perhaps it can be mended."

"It may be mended, but I do not think it will hold water again."

"There is a place," said Amy, "where a patient old German frau, with the

tiniest little bits of rivets that you can hardly see, and the stickiest

cement you ever did see, repairs broken china. Archie was going to sell

the pitcher. His mother had said he might. A lady at the hotel had

promised him five dollars for it as a specimen of some old pottery or

other. Then he leaped that hedge, caught his foot, fell, and that was

the end of that five dollars, which was to have gone for a new lexicon

and I don't know what else."

"It was a fortunate break for Archie. His leg will be as strong as ever,

and we'll make fifty dollars by our show. I call such a disaster an

angel in disguise."

"Mrs. Vanderhoven cried over the pitcher, though. She said it had almost

broken her heart to let Archie take it out of the house, and she felt it

was a judgment on her for being willing to part with it."

"Every one has some superstition, I think," said Amy.

Judge Hastings, a tall, soldierly gentleman, with the bearing of a

courtier, was delighted with the girls, and brought his three little

women in their black frocks to see their new teachers.

"I warn you, young ladies," he said, "these are spoiled babies. But they

will do anything for those they love, and they will surely love you. I

wish them to be thoroughly taught, especially music and calisthenics.

Can you teach them the latter?"

He fixed his keen, blue eyes on Grace, who colored under the glance, but

answered bravely:

"Yes, Judge, I can teach them physical culture and music, too, but I

won't undertake teaching them to count or to spell."

"I'll take charge of that part," said Amy, fearlessly.

Grace's salary was fixed at one thousand dollars, Amy's at five hundred,

a year, and Grace was to come to her pupils three hours a day for five

days every week, Amy one hour a day for five days.

"We'll travel together," said Amy, "for I'll be at the League while you

are pegging away at the teaching of these tots after my hour is over."

If any girl fancies that Grace and Amy had made an easy bargain I

recommend her to try the same tasks day in and day out for the weeks of

a winter. She will discover that she earns her salary. Lucy, Helen and

Madge taxed their young teachers' utmost powers, but they did them

credit, and each month, as Grace was able to add comforts to her home,

to lighten her father's burdens, to remove anxiety from her mother, she

felt that she would willingly have worked harder.

The little pitcher was repaired so that you never would have known it

had been broken. Mrs. Vanderhoven set it in the place of honor on top of

her mantel shelf, and Archie, now able to hobble about, declared that he

would treasure it for his children's children.

One morning a letter came for Grace. It was from the principal of a

girls' school in a lovely village up the Hudson, a school attended by

the daughters of statesmen and millionaires, but one, too, which had

scholarships for bright girls who desired culture, but whose parents had

very little money. To attend Miss L----'s school some girls would have

given more than they could put into words; it was a certificate of good

standing in society to have been graduated there, while mothers prized

and girls envied those who were students at Miss L----'s for the

splendid times they were sure to have.

"Your dear mother," Miss L---- wrote, "will easily recall her old

schoolmate and friend. I have heard of you, Grace, through my friend,

Madame Necker, who was your instructress in Paris, and I have two

objects in writing. One is to secure you as a teacher in reading for an

advanced class of mine. The class would meet but once a week; your

office would be to read to them, interpreting the best authors, and to

influence them in the choice of books adapted for young girls."

Grace held her breath. "Mother!" she exclaimed, "is Miss L---- in her

right mind?"

"A very level-headed person, Grace. Read on."

"I have also a vacant scholarship, and I will let you name a friend of

yours to fill it. I would like a minister's daughter. Is there any dear

little twelve-year-old girl who would like to come to my school, and

whose parents would like to send her, but cannot afford so much expense?

Because, if there is such a child among your friends, I will give her a

warm welcome. Jane Wainwright your honored mother, knows that I will be

too happy thus to add a happiness to her lot in life."

Mother and daughter looked into each other's eyes. One thought was in

both.

"Laura Raeburn!" they exclaimed together.

Laura Raeburn it was who entered Miss L----'s, her heart overflowing

with satisfaction, and so the never-shaken friendship between

Wishing-Brae and the Manse was made stronger still, as by cements and

rivets.

CHAPTER VI.

THE TOWER ROOM.

As time went on, Grace surely did not have to share a third part of her

sisters' room, did she? For nothing is so much prized by most girls as a

room of their very own, and a middle daughter, particularly such a

middle daughter as Grace Wainwright, has a claim to a foothold--a wee

bit place, as the Scotch say--where she can shut herself in, and read

her Bible, and say her prayers, and write her letters, and dream her

dreams, with nobody by to see. Mrs. Wainwright had been a good deal

disturbed about there being no room for Grace when she came back to

Highland, and one would have been fitted up had there been an extra cent

in the family exchequer. Grace didn't mind, or if she did, she made

light of her sacrifice; but her sisters felt that they ought to help her

to privacy.

Eva and Miriam came over to the Manse to consult us in the early days.

I suggested screens.

"You can do almost anything with screens and portieres," I said. "One

of the loveliest rooms I ever saw in my life is in a cottage in the

Catskills, where one large room is separated into drawing-room, library,

and dining-room, and sometimes into a spare chamber, as well, by the

judicious use of screens."

"Could we buy them at any price we could pay?" said Miriam.

"Buy them, child? What are you talking about? You can make them. You

need only two or three clothes-horses for frames, some chintz, or even

wall-paper or calico, a few small tacks, a little braid, a hammer and

patience."

After Grace was fairly launched on her career as teacher, mother

suggested one day that the tower-room at Wishing-Brae could be

transformed into a maiden's bower without the spending of much money,

and that it would make an ideal girl's room, "just the nest for Grace,

to fold her wings in and sing her songs--a nest with an outlook over the

tree-tops and a field of stars above it."

"Mother dear, you are too poetical and romantic for anything, but I

believe," said Amy, "that it could be done, and if it could it ought."

The tower at Wishing-Brae was then a large, light garret-room, used for

trunks and boxes. Many a day have I spent there writing stories when I

was a child, and oh! what a prospect there was and is from those

windows--prospect of moors and mountains, of ribbons of rivers and white

roads leading out to the great world. You could see all Highland from

the tower windows. In sunny days and in storms it was a delight beyond

common just to climb the steep stairs and hide one's self there.

We put our heads together, all of us. We resolved at last that the

tower-room should be our birthday gift to Grace. It was quite easy to

contrive and work when she was absent, but not so easy to keep from

talking about the thing in her presence. Once or twice we almost let it

out, but she suspected nothing, and we glided over the danger as over

ice, and hugged ourselves that we had escaped. We meant it for a

surprise.

First of all, of course, the place had to be thoroughly cleaned, then

whitewashed as to the ceiling, and scoured over and over as to the

unpainted wood. Archie Vanderhoven and all the brothers of both families

helped manfully with this, and the two dear old doctors both climbed up

stairs every day, and gave us their criticism. When the cleanness and

the sweetness were like the world after the deluge, we began to furnish.

The floor was stained a deep dark cherry red; Mrs. Raeburn presented the

room with a large rug, called an art-square; Mrs. Vanderhoven made

lovely écru curtains of cheese-cloth, full and flowing, for the windows

and these were caught back by cherry ribbons.

We had a regular controversy over the bed, half of us declaring for a

folding bed, that could be shut up by day and be an armoire or a

book-case, the others wanting a white enameled bed with brass knobs and

bars. The last party carried the day.

The boys hung some shelves, and on these we arranged Grace's favorite

books. Under the books in the window were her writing-table and her

chair and foot-stool. The Vanderhovens sent a pair of brass andirons for

the fireplace, and the little Hastings children, who were taken into the

secret, contributed a pair of solid silver candlesticks.

Never was there a prettier room than that which we stood and surveyed

one soft April morning when it was pronounced finished. Our one regret

was that dear Mrs. Wainwright could not see it. But the oldest of the

Raeburn boys brought over his camera and took a picture of the room, and

this was afterwards enlarged and framed for one of Mrs. Wainwright's own

birthdays.

"Mother dear," said Grace one evening, as they sat together for a

twilight talk, "do you believe God always answers prayers?"

"Always, my child."

"Do you think we can always see the answers, feel sure He has heard

us?"

"The answers do not always come at once, Grace, nor are they always what

we expect, but God sends us what is best for us, and He gives us

strength to help answer the prayers we make. Sometimes prayers are

answered before they leave our lips. Don't you know that in every 'Oh,

my Father,' is the answer, 'Here, my child?'"

"I used to long, years ago," said Grace, "when I was as happy as I could

be with dear uncle and auntie, just to fly to you and my father. It

seemed sometimes as if I would die just to get home to Highland again,

and be one of the children. Uncle and auntie want me to go abroad with

them this summer, just for a visit, and they are so good they will take

one of my sisters and one of the Raeburns; but I hate to think of the

ocean between you and me again even for a few weeks."

"You must go, dearie," said Mrs. Wainwright. "The dear uncle is part

owner of you, darling, and he's very generous; but he can never have you

back to keep."

"No, indeed."

"Which of the Raeburns do you suppose they can best spare?"

"I don't know which they would choose to spare, but Amy will be the one

to go. She was born under a fortunate star, and the rest will help to

send her."

"I'd like Frances myself."

"Frances is the stay-at-home daughter. She cannot be spared. It will be

Amy, and I will let Miriam go with you, and Eva, who is the youngest,

can wait for her turn some other day."

"Is that Burden's cart going down the lane?" inquired Grace, looking out

of the window. "It's queer how many errands Mr. Burden's had here

lately. I believe he's been investing in another cart, or else he has

painted the old one. Business must be brisk. There come papa, and Dr.

Raeburn with him. Why, mother, all the Raeburns are coming! If there is

to be company, I might have been told."

"So might I," said Mrs. Wainwright, with spirit. "Hurry, Grace, bring me

some cologne and water to wash my face and hands, and give me my

rose-pink wrapper. Turn the key in the door, dearie. An invalid should

never be seen except looking her best. You can slip away and get into a

tea gown before you meet them, if they are coming to supper. Whose

birthday is it? This seems to be a surprise party."

"Why, mamma--it's my birthday; but you don't think there's anything on

foot that I don't know of--do you, dearest?"

"I wouldn't like to say what I think, my pet. There, the coast is

clear. Run away and change your gown. Whoever wished to see me now may

do so. The queen is ready to give audience. Just wheel my chair a little

to the left, so that I can catch the last of that soft pink after-glow."

"And were you really entirely unprepared, Grace," said the girls later,

"and didn't you ever for a single moment notice anything whatsoever we

were doing?"

"Never for one instant. I missed my Tennyson and my French Bible, but

thought Eva had borrowed them, and in my wildest imagination I never

dreamed you would furnish a lovely big room at the top of the house all

for me, my own lone self. It doesn't seem right for me to accept it."

"Ah, but it is quite right!" said her father, tenderly, "and here is

something else--a little birthday check from me to my daughter. Since

you came home and set me on my feet I've prospered as never before. Eva

has collected ever so many of my bills, and I've sold a corner of the

meadow for a good round sum, a corner that never seemed to me to be

worth anything. I need not stay always in your debt, financially, dear

little woman."

"But, papa."

"But, Grace."

"Your father is right, Grace," said the sweet low tones of Mrs.

Wainwright, even and firm. "Through God's goodness you have had the

means and disposition to help him, but neither of us ever intended to

rest our weight always on your shoulders. You needn't work so hard

hereafter, unless you wish, to."

"Thank you, dear papa," said Grace. "I shall work just as hard, because

I love to work, and because I am thus returning to the world some part

of what I owe it; and next year, who knows, I may be able to pay Eva's

bills at Miss L----'s."

Eva jumped up and down with delight.

Then came supper, served in Mrs. Wainwright's room, and after that music

and a long merry talk, and at last, lest Mrs. Wainwright should be

weary, the Raeburns took their way homeward over the lane and across the

fields to the Manse.