nd went crashing into the front one. And the tongue
went straight through the barrel of blue dishes--from end to
end--smashing everything except these few cups and saucers that had
laid along the sides.

Elizabeth wiped one of the cracked cups very carefully and a lump arose
in her throat. She always felt the pathos of the story, though Mother
MacAllister expressed no regrets. But somehow, as the woman held one
of the treasured dishes in her hard, worn hands, the tenderness in her
eyes and voice conveyed to the child something of what their loss
typified. They seemed to stand for all the beauty and hope and light
of the young bride's life, that had been ruthlessly destroyed by the
hardness and drudgery of the rough new land.

"They are to be yours when you grow up, you mind, little Lizzie,"
Mother MacAllister said, as she always did when the story of the blue
cups and saucers was finished. Elizabeth sighed rapturously. "Oh, I'd
just love them!" she cried, "but I couldn't bear to take them away from
here. The cupboard would look so lonesome without them. I suppose I
wouldn't need to, though, if I married Charles Stuart, would I?" she
added practically.

Mother MacAllister turned her back for a few minutes. When she looked
at Elizabeth again there was only a twinkle in her deep eyes.

"You would be thinking of that?" she asked quite seriously.

"Oh, I suppose so," said Elizabeth with a deep sigh, as of one who was
determined to shoulder bravely life's heaviest burdens. "Of course
aunt thinks Mrs. Jarvis may take me away and make a lady of me, but I
don't really see how she could; do you, Mother MacAllister?"

"I would not be thinking about that, hinny. Mother MacAllister would
be sad, sad to see her little girl carried away by the cares o' the
world and the deceitfulness of riches."

"I hope I won't ever be," said Elizabeth piously. "Sometimes I think
I'd like to be a missionary, cause girls can't be like Joan of Arc now.
But it says in the g'ogerphy that there's awful long snakes in heathen
lands. I don't believe I'd mind the idols, or the black people without
much clothes on, though of course it wouldn't be genteel. But Martha
Ellen says we shouldn't mind those things for the sake of the gospel.
But, oh, Mother MacAllister! Think of a snake as long as this room!
Malcolm heard a missionary in Cheemaun tell about one. I think I'd be
too scared to preach if they were round. And I couldn't take your