ty." "It's just like you to drop a
thing in the middle and not finish it." Mary was growing more like her
Aunt Margaret every day in her stately prim manner.

"I didn't drop it in the middle, Miss Wiseacre," said her sister.
"Can't you see I started the Duty one. It's ten stitches past the
middle!" She caught them up, bound "the beauty one" about her head,
stuck the other into her belt for an apron, twisted her face up into a
perfect imitation of Auntie Jinit McKerracher, and proceeded to give
Mary the latest piece of gossip, in a broad Scotch accent, ending up as
Auntie Jinit always did, "Noo, ah'm jist tellin' ye whit ah heered, an'
if it's a lee, ah didna mak it!"

Mary laughed till the tears came. Lizzie was so absurd and so funny.
But the fit of laughter at her antics brought on a fit of coughing, and
a voice called from the foot of the stairs--"Mary, Mary, are you
sitting up in that chilly room? Come right down to the stove at once."

Mary went coughing down the stairs, and Elizabeth listened unconcerned.
Mary had always been coughing and always been chased to the stove ever
since she could remember. She folded her head-dress and put it into
the drawer. She glanced at its inscription, "I slept and dreamed that
life was beauty." She was sleeping these happy days, and dreaming too
that life was all joy. The other pillow-cover slipped from her belt
and lay on the floor. Her careless foot trampled it. It was the one
that read, "I awoke and found that life was duty." The significance of
her unconscious act did not reach her. She hummed a gay song learned
at school, as she crammed the pieces of embroidery into a drawer. They
were merely embroidery to Elizabeth, and so was life. She had not yet
read the inscription traced over it by the finger of God, and knew not
its divine meaning.

But in the silence of the little room, the remembrance of Dr.
Primrose's fell message suddenly returned. It was the first time she
had recalled it all that long, happy day. Well, there was no use
worrying, she concluded philosophically. Sufficient unto the day was
the evil thereof, and she ran down the stairs singing.

The summer holidays soon came, and Elizabeth left Cheemaun under a
cloud. She had failed, while the rest of the family had succeeded.
Everyone came home bearing laurels but her, and her aunt keenly felt
the one shadow over the family glory.

Nevertheless, for Elizabeth the vacation passed gayly. She