k into ways of
more careful managing. A mutual need,--or the seeing of it. The need
is now; these girls--half of them--want homes, more than anything;
and the homes are suffering for the help of just such girls."

"Why don't you edit a paper, Desire? The 'Fellowship Register,' or
the 'Domestic Intelligencer,' or something! And keep lists of all
the nice, real housekeepers, and the nice, real, willing girls?"

"That isn't a bad notion, Hazie. Your notions never are. May be that
is what is waiting for you. Just cover up that 'raised Switzerland,'
will you, and bring it over here? And roll up the 'Course of the
Rhine,' and set it in the corner. There; now we may put out the gas.
Sylvie, has your mother had her fresh camomile tea?"

The three girls bade each other good-night at the stairs; just where
Desire had stood once, and put her arms about Uncle Titus's neck for
the first time. She often thought of it now, when they went up after
the pleasant evenings, and came down in the bright mornings to their
cheery breakfasts. She liked to stop on just that step. Nobody knew
all it meant to her, when she did. There are places in every
dwelling that keep such secrets for one heart and memory alone.

Yes, indeed. Sylvie was very happy now. All her pretty pictures, and
little brackets, and her mother's stands and vases in the gray
parlor, were hung with the lovely, wreathing, fairy stems of
star-leaved, blossomy fern; and the sweet, dry scent was a perpetual
subtle message. That day in the train from East Keaton was a day to
pervade the winter, as this woodland breath pervaded the old city
house. Sylvie could wait with what she had, sure that, sometime,
more was coming. She could wait better than Rodney. Because,--she
knew she was waiting, and satisfied to wait. How did Rodney know
that?

It was what he kept asking his Aunt Euphrasia in his frequent,
boyish, yet most manly, letters. And she kept answering, "You need
not fear. I think I understand Sylvie. I can see. If there were
anything in the way, I would tell you."

But at last she had to say,--not, "I think I understand
Sylvie,"--but, "I understand girls, Rodney. I am a woman, remember.
I have been a girl, and I have waited. I have waited all my life.
The right girls can."

And Rodney said, tossing up the letter with a shout, and catching it
with a loving grasp between his hands again,--

"Good for you, you dear, brave, blessed ace of hearts in a world
where hearts a