“Begin about Jacob and read right on.”

With a voice that could not entirely conceal her disappointment, she “began about Jacob and read right on” until Mrs. Rheid’s light step touched the plank at the kitchen door.  There was a quiet joyfulness in her face, but she did not say one word; she bent over to kiss Marjorie as she passed her, hung up her gingham sun-bonnet, and as the tea kettle was singing, poured the boiling water into an iron pot, scattered a handful of salt in it and went to the cupboard for the Indian meal.

“I’ll stir,” said Marjorie, looking around at the old lady and discovering her head dropped towards one side and the knitting aslant in her fingers.

“The pudding stick is on the shelf next to the tin porringer,” explained Mrs. Rheid.

Marjorie moved to the stove and stood a moment holding the wooden pudding stick in her hand.

“You may tell Hollis,” said Hollis’ mother, slowly dropping the meal into the boiling water, “that I have found peace, at last.”

Majorie’s eyes gave a quick leap.

“Peace in believing—­there is no peace anywhere else,” she added.

XII.

A BUDGET OF LETTERS.

“The flowers have with the swallows fled,
  And silent is the cricket;
The red leaf rustles overhead,
  The brown leaves fill the thicket

“With frost and storm comes slowly on
  The year’s long wintry night time.”—­J.  T. Trowbridge

“New York, Nov. 21, 18—.

“MY DARLING MARJORIE: 

“You know I hate to write letters, and I do not believe I should have begun this this evening if Miss Prudence had not made me.  She looks at me with her eyes and then I am made.  I am to be two weeks writing this, so it is a journal.  To think I have been at school two years and am beginning a third year.  And to think I am really nineteen years old.  And you are sixteen, aren’t you?  Almost as old as I was when I first came.  But your turn is coming, poor dear!  Miss Prudence says I may go home and be married next summer, if I can’t find anything better to do, and Will says I can’t.  And I shouldn’t wonder if we go to Europe on our wedding tour.  That sounds grand, doesn’t it?  But it only means that Captain Will Rheid will take his wife with him if the owners’ do not object too strongly, and if they do, the captain says he will let the Linnet find another master; but I don’t believe he will, or that anybody will object.  That little cabin is just large enough for two of us to turn around in, or we would take you.  Just wait till Will has command of a big East Indiaman and you shall go all around the world with us.  We are in our snuggery this evening, as usual.  I think you must know it as well as I do by this time.  The lovely white bed in the alcove, the three windows with lace curtains dropping to the floor, the grate with its soft, bright