eally believe it was coming true----"

"And it ain't come true, it seems," snapped her cousin.

"No-o. Not exactly. But I had the surprise of getting Daddy's check, and
it was just _dear_ of him to send me such a lot of money."

"What do you suppose Broxton will say, girl, when he learns how you've
frittered that thousand dollars away?" demanded Uncle Jason, sternly.

"He'll never say a word--in objection," she cried. "You can read right
here in his letter how I am to use the money in just any way I
please--and no questions asked!"

"But you've talked so much about your automobile, deary," said Aunt
'Mira, faintly. "Ain't you most disappointed to death, child?"

"Oh, no, Aunty," returned Janice, cheerfully. "You know, I could be just
awfully selfish, _in my mind!_ But when it came to running about the
country in an automobile, with poor Lottie blind and helpless because of
my selfishness----No, no! I could not have done it."

"I don't suppose you could, child," sighed the large lady, shaking her
head. "But whatever am I goin' to do with that auto coat and them veils
I bought? They don't seem jest the thing to wear out, jogging behind old
Sam and Lightfoot."

However, Mr. Day had a chance to trade the two old farm horses off that
spring for a handsome pair of sorrels. They were good work horses as
well as drivers. An old double-seated buckboard which had been under one
of the Day sheds for a decade, was hauled out and repaired, painted and
varnished, new cushions made, and on occasion the family went to drive
about the country.

"For it does seem," Mrs. Day, with wondering satisfaction, more than
once declared, "it does seem as though your Pa, Marty, has a whole lot
more time to gad abeout now than he use ter--yet we're gettin' along
better. I don't understand it."

"Huh!" grunted Marty. "See all the work _I_ do. Don't ye s'pose that
counts none?"

Janice merely smiled quietly as she heard this conversation. Uncle Jason
was up and out to work now by daybreak, like other farmers. He smoked
his after-dinner pipe by the back door; but it was only one pipe. He
often declared that "his wimmen folk" made such a bustle inside the
kitchen after dinner that he couldn't even think. He just _had_ to go
back to work "to get shet of 'em."

The bacilli of _work_ had taken hold of the Day family. Uncle Jason had
begun to take pride in his fields and in his crops. Nobody in all
Poketown, or thereabout, had such a garden as