“I wish I could, dears,” answered a voice behind them, and there was Miss Celia, looking so happy that the little girls wondered what the letter could have said to give her such bright eyes and smiling lips.  “I shall not be gone long, or be a bit changed when I come back, to live among you years I hope, for I am fond of the old place now, and mean it shall be home,” she added, caressing the yellow heads as if they were dear to her.

“Oh, goody!” cried Bab, while Betty whispered with both arms round Miss Celia: 

“I don’t think we could bear to have anybody else come here to live.”

“It is very pleasant to hear you say that, and I mean to make others feel so, if I can.  I have been trying a little this summer, but when I come back I shall go to work in earnest to be a good minister’s wife, and you must help me.”

“We will,” promised both children, ready for anything except preaching in the high pulpit.

Then Miss Celia turned to Ben, saying, in the respectful way that always made him feel, at least, twenty-five: 

“We shall be off to-morrow, and I leave you in charge.  Go on just as if we were here, and be sure nothing will be changed as far as you are concerned when we come back.”

Ben’s face beamed at that; but the only way he could express his relief was by making such a blaze in honor of the occasion that he nearly roasted the company.

Next morning, the brother and sister slipped quietly away, and the children hurried to school, eager to tell the great news that “Miss Celia and Thorny had gone to be married, and were coming back to live here forever and ever.”

(To be continued.)

[Illustration:  SATURDAY AFTERNOON.]

LITTLE BEAR.

BY SAMUEL W. DUFFIELD.

[Illustration]

  There lives with us an Indian—­
    A Paw-knee, I declare—­
  And he utters dreadful war-whoops,
    And his name is Little Bear.

  A braver foe in a battle,
    When his hands are in your hair,
  There is none in all my knowledge
    Than this same Little Bear.

  But when the firelight shining
    Lights the room up with its glare,
  I often camp on the hearth-rug,
    Good friends with Little Bear.

  And I’m very sure I should miss him
    If ever he wasn’t there—­
  This irrepressible Indian,
    By the name of Little Bear!

MY ST. GEORGE.

BY ALICE MAUDE EDDY.

It is ten years ago to-day since Georgie May and I went to “Captain Kidd’s Cave” after sea-urchins.  Georgie was a neighbor’s child with whom I had played all my short life, and whom I loved almost as dearly as my own brothers.  Such a brave, bright face he had, framed by sunny hair where the summers had dropped gold dust as they passed him by.  I can see him now as he stood that day on the firm sand of the beach, with his brown eyes glowing and his plump hand brandishing a wooden sword which he himself had made, and painted with gorgeous figures of red and yellow.