“I am rather made for giving than taking.”—­Mrs. Browning.

Mrs. West had been awakened from her nap with an uncomfortable feeling that something disagreeable had happened or was about to happen; she felt “impressed” she would have told you.  Pushing the light quilt away from her face she arose with a decided vigor, determined to “work it off” if it were merely physical; she brushed her iron gray hair with steady strokes and already began to feel as if her presentiment were groundless; she bathed her cheeks in cool water, she dressed herself carefully in her worn black and white barege, put on her afternoon cap, a bit of black lace with bows of narrow black ribbon, fastened the linen collar Linnet had worked with button-hole stitch with the round gold and black enamelled pin that contained locks of the light hair of her two lost babes, and then felt herself ready for the afternoon, even ready for the minister and his stylish wife, if they should chance to call.  But she was not ready without her afternoon work; she would feel fidgety unless she had something to keep her fingers moving; the afternoon work happened to be a long white wool stocking for Linnet’s winter wear.  Linnet must have new ones, she decided; she would have no time to darn old ones, and Marjorie might make the old ones do another winter; it was high time for Marjorie to learn to mend.

The four shining knitting needles were clicking in the doorway of the broad little entry that opened out to the green front yard when Miss Prudence found her way around to the front of the house.  The ample figure and contented face made a picture worth looking at, and Miss Prudence looked at it a moment before she announced her presence by speaking.

“Mrs. West, I want to come to see you a little while—­may I?”

Miss Prudence had a pretty, appealing way of speaking, oftentimes, that caused people to feel as if she were not quite grown up.  There was something akin to childlikeness in her voice and words and manner, to-day.  She had never felt so humble in her life, as to-day when her whole life loomed up before her—­one great disappointment.

“I was just thinking that I would go and find you after I had turned the heel; I haven’t had a talk with you yet.”

“I want it,” returned the younger lady, seating herself on the upper step and leaning back against the door post.  “I’ve been wanting to be mothered all day.  I have felt as if the sunshine were taking me into its arms, and as if the soft warm grass were my mother’s lap.”

“Dear child, you have had trouble in your life, haven’t you?” replied the motherly voice.

Miss Prudence was not impulsive, at least she believed that she had outgrown yielding to a sudden rush of feeling, but at these words she burst into weeping, and drawing nearer dropped her head in the broad lap.

“There, there, deary!  Cry, if it makes you feel any better,” hushed the voice that had rocked babies to sleep.