oth."

It was perhaps unbecoming a rector's wife, but Jim loved his mother
better because she expressed a preference for the sports he loved, and
considered that no other boy had a mother who was quite equal to his.
Sally Patterson was small and wiry, with a bright face, and very thick,
brown hair, which had a boyish crest over her forehead, and she could
run as fast as Jim. Jim's father was much older than his mother, and
very dignified, although he had a keen sense of humor. He used to laugh
when his wife and son came in after their coasting expeditions.

"Well, boys," he would say, "had a good time?"

Jim was perfectly satisfied and convinced that his mother was the very
best and most beautiful person in the village, even in the whole world,
until Mr. Cyril Rose came to fill a vacancy of cashier in the bank, and
his daughter, little Lucy Rose, as a matter of course, came with him.
Little Lucy had no mother. Mr. Cyril's cousin, Martha Rose, kept his
house, and there was a colored maid with a bad temper, who was said,
however, to be invaluable "help."

Little Lucy attended Madame's school. She came the next Monday after Jim
and his friends had planned to have a chicken roast and failed. After
Jim saw little Lucy he thought no more of the chicken roast. It
seemed to him that he thought no more of anything. He could not by any
possibility have learned his lessons had it not been for the desire
to appear a good scholar before little Lucy. Jim had never been a
self-conscious boy, but that day he was so keenly worried about her
opinion of him that his usual easy swing broke into a strut when he
crossed the room. He need not have been so troubled, because little Lucy
was not looking at him. She was not looking at any boy or girl. She
was only trying to learn her lesson. Little Lucy was that rather rare
creature, a very gentle, obedient child, with a single eye for her duty.
She was so charming that it was sad to think how much her mother had
missed, as far as this world was concerned.

The minute Madame saw her a singular light came into her eyes--the light
of love of a childless woman for a child. Similar lights were in the
eyes of Miss Parmalee and Miss Acton. They looked at one another with
a sort of sweet confidence when they were drinking tea together after
school in Madame's study.

"Did you ever see such a darling?" said Madame. Miss Parmalee said she
never had, and Miss Acton echoed her.

"She is a little ang