n-body?"

The boy could think of no better reason than this: "Because--because
she's so sair in need o' are." (There were moments when one liked
Tommy.)

Mr. McLean turned to the window, and perhaps forgot that he was not
alone. "Well, what are you thinking about so deeply?" he asked by and
by.

"I was trying to think o' something that would gar you laugh," answered
Tommy, very earnestly, and was surprised to see that he had nearly done
it.

The blue and white note-book was lying on the floor where Miss Ailie had
dropped it. Often in Tommy's presence she had consulted this work, and
certainly its effect on her was the reverse of laughter; but once he had
seen Dr. McQueen pick it up and roar over every page. With an
inspiration Tommy handed the book to Mr. McLean. "It made the doctor
laugh," he said persuasively.

"Go away," said Ivie, impatiently; "I am in no mood for laughing."

"I tell you what," answered Tommy, "I'll go, if you promise to look at
it," and to be rid of him the man agreed. For the next quarter of an
hour Tommy and Gavinia were very near the door of the blue-and-white
room, Tommy whispering dejectedly, "I hear no laughing," and Gavinia
replying, "But he has quieted down."

Mr. McLean had a right to be very angry, but God only can say whether he
had a right to be as angry as he was. The book had been handed to him
open, and he was laying it down unread when a word underlined caught his
eye. It was his own name. Nothing in all literature arrests our
attention quite so much as that. He sat down to the book. It was just
about this time that Miss Ailie went on her knees to pray.

It was only a penny pass-book. On its blue cover had been pasted a slip
of white paper, and on the paper was written, in blue ink, "Alison
Cray," with a date nearly nine years old. The contents were in Miss
Ailie's prim handwriting; jottings for her own use begun about the time
when the sisters, trembling at their audacity, had opened school, and
consulted and added to fitfully ever since. Hours must have been spent
in erasing the blots and other blemishes so carefully. The tiny volume
was not yet full, and between its two last written pages lay a piece of
blue blotting-paper neatly cut to the size of the leaf.

Some of these notes were transcripts from books, some contained the
advice of friends, others were doubtless the result of talks with Miss
Kitty (from whom there were signs that the work had been kept a secret),