theme of delight.  Not only did she take Marjoire’s letters to her old father and mother, but she more than a few times carried them in her pocket when she visited Mrs. Rheid, that she might read them aloud to her.  Miss Prudence’s work was also on the table, pretty sewing for Prue and her writing materials, for it was the night for her weekly letter to John Holmes.  Mr. Holmes did not parade his letters before the neighbors, but none the less did he pore over them and ponder them.  For whom had he in all the world to love save little Prue and Aunt Prue?

Marjorie had closed the chemistry with a sigh, reserving astronomy for the fresher hour of the morning.  With the burden of the unlearned lesson on her mind she opened her Bible for her usual evening reading, shrinking from it with a distaste that she had felt several times of late and that she had fought against and prayed about.  Last evening she had compelled herself to read an extra chapter to see if she might not read herself into a comfortable frame of mind, and then she had closed the book with a sigh of relief, feeling that this last task of the day was done.  To-night she fixed her eyes upon the page awhile and then dropped the book into her lap with a weary gesture that was not unnoticed by the eyes that never lost anything where Marjorie was concerned.  It was something new to see a fretful or fretted expression upon Marjorie’s lips, but it was certainly there to-night and Miss Prudence saw it; it might be also in her eyes, but, if it were, the uneasy eyelids were at this moment concealing it.  “The child is very weary to-night,” Miss Prudence thought, and wondered if she were allowing her, in her ambition, to take too much upon herself.  Music, with the two hours a day practicing that she resolutely never omitted, all the school lessons, reading and letters, and the conscientious preparation of her lesson for Bible class, was most assuredly sufficient to tax her mental and physical strength, and there was the daily walk of a mile to and from school, and other things numberless to push themselves in for her comfort and Prue’s.  But her step was elastic, her color as pretty as when she worked in the kitchen at home, and when she came in from school she was always ready for a romp with Prue before she sat down to practice.

When summer came the garden and trips to the islands would be good for both her children.  Miss Prudence advocated the higher education for girls, but if Marjorie’s color had faded or her spirits flagged she would have taken her out of school and set her to household tasks and to walks and drives.  Had she not taken Linnet home after her three years course with the country color fresh in her cheeks and her step as light upon the stair as when she left home?