a frosty morning, they felt more cheerful than they considered was quite
the proper thing, under the circumstances. Then Amy looked at her
brother and laughed.

"Isn't it splendid after the rain? and isn't it funny to be here?
Yesterday it seemed as if the world had come to an end, and now it seems
as if it had just been made new."

"'Every morn is a fresh beginning,'" quoted Hallam, who loved books
better than his sister did.

"Let's go down to the gate, or place where a gate should be, and take a
good look at our--home."

"All right. Though we've seen it at a distance, I suppose it will appear
differently to us at near hand."

"And uglier. Oh, but it's horrid! _horrid!_" and with a sudden revulsion
of feeling Amy buried her face in her hands and began to cry. "I hate
it. I won't stay here. I will not. I'd rather go home and live in the
old stable than here."

"That wouldn't have been a bad idea, only we shouldn't have been
allowed."

"Who could have hindered that? Who'd want an empty stable?"

"Our cousin Archibald!" answered Hallam, with scornful emphasis. "I
believe he feels as if he had a mortgage on our very souls. Indeed, he
said I might sometime be able to earn enough to buy the place back, as
well as pay all other debts. He said he couldn't live forever, and it
was but fair he should have a few years' possession of 'his own.'
He--Well, there's no use talking. I wish--I wish I were--"

"No, no! you don't! No, you don't either, Hallam Kaye! I know what you
began to say, and you shall not finish. You shall not die. You shall get
well and strong and do all those things he said. I'm ashamed of myself
that I cried. I felt last night as if my old life were all a beautiful
dream, and that I had just waked up into a real world where I had to do
things for myself and for others; not have others do for me any longer."

"That was about the state of the case, I fancy."

"Well, that isn't so bad. It shouldn't be, that is; for I have such
health and strength and everything. Nothing matters so much as long as
we are all together."

"Nobody knows how long we shall be. I don't like these 'attacks' of
father's, Amy. I'm afraid of them. It will kill him to live here."

It needed but the possibility of giving comfort to somebody to arouse
all Amy's natural hopefulness, and she commanded with a shake of her
forefinger:--

"Hallam Kaye, you stop it! I won't have it! If you keep it up, I shall
have to--to cuff you."