Street, was to "spill over" from the Bee-hive into the Mile-hill
house. "She knew just whom to put there; people who would take care
and comfort. Them shouldn't be any hurt, and there would be lots of
help."

There was a widow with three daughters, to begin with; "just as neat
as a row of pins;" but who had had less and less to be neat with for
seven years past; one of the daughters had just got a situation as
compositor, and another as a book-keeper; between them, they could
earn twelve hundred dollars a year. The youngest had to stay at home
and help her mother do the work, that they might all keep together.
They could pay three hundred dollars for four rooms; but of course
they could not get decent ones, in a decent neighborhood, for that.
That was what Bee-hives were for; houses that other people could do
without.

Hazel had her wish; it came to pass that they also should make a
bee-hive.

"And whenever I marry," Hazel said, "I hope he won't be building a
town of his own to take me to; for I shall _have_ to bring him here.
I'm the last of the line."

"That will all be taken care of as the rest has been. There isn't
half as much left for us to manage as we think," said Desire,
putting back into the desk the copy of Uncle Titus's will which they
had been reading over together. "He knew the executorship into
which he gave it."

Shall I stop here with them until the Easter tide, and finish
telling you how it all was?

There is a little bit about Bel Bree and Kate Sencerbox and the
Schermans, which belongs somewhat earlier than that,--in those few
pleasant days when March was beguiling us to believe in the more
engaging of his double moods, and in the possibility of his behaving
sweetly at the end, and going out after all like a lamb.

We can turn back afterwards for that. I think you would like to hear
about the wedding.

Does it never occur to you that this "going back and living up" in a
story-book is a sign of a possibility that may be laid by in the
divine story-telling, for the things we have to hurry away from, and
miss of, now? It does to me. I know that _That_ can manage at least
as well as mine can.

* * * * *

Christopher Kirkbright and Desire Ledwith were married in the
library, where they had betrothed themselves; where Desire had felt
all the sacredness of her life laid upon her; where she took up now
another trust, that was only an outgrowth and expansion of