wever deep hidden it may be in
a surrounding deadness. All things,--creation itself,--as Asenath
had said, must begin in spots; and she and Bel Bree had begun a fair
new spot, in which was a vitality that tends to organic
completeness, to full establishment, and triumphant growth.

Upon Bel herself reflected quickly and surely the beneficent action
of this life. She was taking in truly, at every pore. How long would
it have been before, out of the hard coarse limits in which her one
line of labor and association had first placed her, she would have
come up into such an atmosphere as was here, ready made for her to
breathe and abide in? To help make also; to stand at its practical
mainspring, and keep it possible that it should move on.

The talk, the ideas of the day, were in her ears; the books, the
periodicals of the day were at hand, and free for her to avail
herself of. The very fun at Mrs, Scherman's tea-table was the sort
of fun that can only sparkle out of culture. There was a grace that
her aptness caught, and that was making a lady of her.

"I'll give in," said Elise Mokey, "that you're getting _style_;
though I can't tell how it is either. It ain't in your calico
dresses, nor the doing up of your hair."

Perhaps it was a good deal in the very simplifying of these from the
exaggerated imitations of the shop and street, as well as in the
tone of all the rest with which these inevitably fell into harmony.

But I want to tell you about Bel's kitchen Crambo. I want to show
you how what is in a woman, in heart and mind, springs up and shows
itself, and may grow to whatever is meant for it, out of the
quietest background of homely use.

She brought out pencil and paper, and made Kate write question slips
and detached words.

"I feel just tingling to try," she said. "There's a kind of dancing
in my head, of things that have been there ever so long. I believe I
shall make a poem to-night. It's catching, when you're predisposed;
and it's partly the spring weather, and the sap coming up. 'Put a
name to it,' Katie! Almost anything will set me off."

Kate wrote, on half a dozen scraps; then tossed them up, and pushed
them over for Bel to draw.

"How do you like the city in the spring?" was the question; and the
word, suggested by Kate's work at the moment, was,--"Hem."

Bel put her elbows on the table, and her hands up against her ears.
Her eyes shone, as they rested intent upon the two penciled bits.
The link