rnest
anxiety of comprehension with which a child first learns to read. So
Libbie took the stool by her side, before she was aware that any one had
entered the room.

"What did she want you for?" asked Margaret. "But I can guess; she
wanted you to be at th' wedding that is to come off this week, they say.
Ay, they'll marry, and laugh, and dance, all as one as if my boy was
alive," said she, bitterly. "Well, he was neither kith nor kin of yours,
so I maun try and be thankful for what you've done for him, and not
wonder at your forgetting him afore he's well settled in his grave."

"I never can forget him, and I'm not going to the wedding," said Libbie,
quietly, for she understood the mother's jealousy of her dead child's
claims.

"I must go work at Mrs. Williams' to-morrow," she said, in explanation,
for she was unwilling to boast of her tender, fond regret, which had
been her principal motive for declining Anne's invitation.

"And I mun go washing, just as if nothing had happened," sighed forth
Mrs. Hall, "and I mun come home at night, and find his place empty, and
all still where I used to be sure of hearing his voice ere ever I got
up the stair: no one will ever call me mother again." She fell crying
pitifully, and Libbie could not speak for her own emotion for some time.
But during this silence she put the keystone in the arch of thoughts she
had been building up for many days; and when Margaret was again calm in
her sorrow, Libbie said, "Mrs. Hall, I should like--would you like me to
come for to live here altogether?"

Margaret Hall looked up with a sudden light in her countenance, which
encouraged Libbie to go on.

"I could sleep with you, and pay half, you know; and we should be together
in the evenings; and her as was home first would watch for the other,
and" (dropping her voice) "we could talk of him at nights, you know."

She was going on, but Mrs. Hall interrupted her.

"Oh, Libbie Marsh! and can you really think of coming to live wi' me. I
should like it above--but no! it must not be; you've no notion on what a
creature I am, at times; more like a mad one when I'm in a rage, and I
cannot keep it down. I seem to get out of bed wrong side in the morning,
and I must have my passion out with the first person I meet. Why, Libbie,"
said she, with a doleful look of agony on her face, "I even used to fly
out on him, poor sick lad as he was, and you may judge how little you
can keep it down frae that. No, yo