“What will unsettle me?”

“What unsettled you now?”

“Circumstances.”

“Circumstances will keep on being in existence as long as we are in existence.  I never forget a motto I chose for my birthday once on a time.  ‘The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.’”

“He commands us to fight, sometimes.”

“And then we must fight.  You seem to be undergoing some struggles now.  Have you any opening here?”

“I answered an advertisement this morning, but we could not come to terms.  Marjorie, what you say about Middlefield is worth thinking of.”

“That is why I said it,” she said archly.

“Would you like that life better?”

“Better for you?”

“No, better for yourself.”

“I am there already, you know,” with rising color.

“I believe I will write to father and tell him I will take his kindness into serious consideration.”

“There is no need of haste.”

“He will want to begin to make plans.  He is a great planner.  Marjorie!  I just thought of it.  We will rent Linnet’s house this summer—­or board with her, and superintend the building of our own, Do you agree to that?”

“You haven’t taken it into serious consideration yet.”

“Will it make any difference to you—­my decision?  Will you share my life—­any way?”

Prue ran in at that instant, Linnet following.  Hollis arose and walked around among the books.  Prue squeezed herself into Marjorie’s broad chair; and Linnet dropped herself on the hassock at Marjorie’s feet, and laid her head in Marjorie’s lap.

There was no trouble in Linnet’s face, only an accepted sorrow.

“Marjorie, will you read to us?” coaxed Prue.  “Don’t you know how you used to read in Maple Street?”

“What do you feel like listening to?”

“Your voice,” said Prue, demurely.

XXXI.

AND WHAT ELSE?

“What is the highest secret of victory and peace? 
To will what God wills.”—­W.R.  Alger.

And now what further remains to be told?

Would you like to see Marjorie in her new home, with Linnet’s chimneys across the fields?  Would you like to know about Hollis’ success as a Christian and a Christian citizen in his native town?  Would you like to see the proud, indulgent grandmothers the day baby Will takes his first steps?  For Aunt Linnet named him, and the grandfather declares “she loves him better than his mother, if anything!”

One day dear Grandma West came to see the baby, and bring him some scarlet stockings of her own knitting; she looked pale and did not feel well, and Marjorie persuaded her to remain all night.

In the morning Baby went into her chamber to awaken her with a kiss; but her lips were cold, and she would not open her eyes.  She had gone home, as she always wanted to go, in her sleep.