“I like that,” said Prue, contentedly; “because I keep papa’s name tucked in somewhere. May I go to-day, Aunt Prue?”

“Not yet, dear.  Master McCosh knows you are coming by and by.  Marjorie may bring me a list of the books you will need and by the time the new quarter commences in February you may be able to overtake them if you study well.  I think that will have to do, Prue.”

“I would rather go to-day,” sobbed the child, trying to choke the tears back.  Rolling up her napkin hurriedly, she excused herself almost inaudibly and left the table.

“Aunt Prue! she’ll cry,” remonstrated Marjorie.

“Little girls have to cry sometimes,” returned Miss Prudence, her own eyes suffused.

“She is not rebellious,” remarked Morris.

“No, never rebellious—­not in words; she told me within the first half hour of our meeting that she had promised papa she would be obedient.  But for that promise we might have had a contest of wills.  She will not speak of school again till February.”

“How she creeps into one’s heart,” said Morris.

Miss Prudence’s reply was a flash of sunshine through the mist of her eyes.

Marjorie excused herself to find Prue and comfort her a little, promising to ask Aunt Prue to let her go to school with her one day every week, as a visitor, until the new quarter commenced.

Miss Prudence was not usually so strict, she reasoned within herself; why must she wait for another quarter?  Was she afraid of the cold for Prue?  She must be waiting for something.  Perhaps it was to hear from Mr. Holmes, Marjorie reasoned; she consulted him with regard to every new movement of Prue’s.  She knew that when she wrote to him she called her “our little girl.”

While Miss Prudence and Morris lingered at the breakfast table they caught sounds of romping and laughter on the staircase and in the hall above.

“Those two are my sunshine,” said Miss Prudence.

“I wish mother could have some of its shining,” answered Morris.  “My sisters do not give poor mother much beside the hard side of their own lives.”

When Miss Prudence’s two sunbeams rushed (if sunbeams do rush) into the back parlor they found her and Morris talking earnestly in low, rather suppressed tones, Morris seemed excited, there was an air of resolution about Miss Prudence’s attitude that promised Marjorie there would be some new plan to be talked about that night.  There was no stagnation, even in the monotony of Miss Prudence’s little household.  Hardly a day passed that Marjorie did not find her with some new thing to do for somebody somewhere outside in the ever-increasing circle of her friends.  Miss Prudence’s income as well as herself was kept in constant circulation.  Marjorie enjoyed it; it was the ideal with which she had painted the bright days of her own future.