iving comfortably, when Guy, who had never liked
the store, expressed his ardent desire to study law. He was rather
surprised to find the readiness with which his mother consented, and the
eagerness of his sisters. Speaking truthfully, they thought him far
above his present business and much preferred that he should have a
profession. So it was not long until he was in a lawyer's office. Then
their mother died. It seemed a very cruel thing to Guy that she should
be taken away just now; if she could only have lived a few years longer
to see her son a great man; he had determined to repay her for all her
devotion.

Ruth soon had to do without her assistant when Agnes, with a bright,
cheerful heart, went out into the world "to help Guy and Ruth." And now
the sisters are teaching, while "Guy Gorton, Attorney at Law," mounts
his three flights of stairs daily, with a great deal of hope, and as
large a share of importance.

[Illustration: Decoration]

CHAPTER II.

DIFFERENTLY CONSTITUTED.

NEITHER of the girls could tell which awoke first on New Year's morning,
for as Agnes said at the breakfast table, when they looked at each other
they were both awake.

Guy declared it was no wonder she graduated with such high honor when
she was so extremely wise; and Ruth gave it as her opinion that she
always had been a most precocious child, relating instances, some of
them so amusing that with the recollection came a general outburst of
merriment. "Do you remember the time the Millerites were making such an
ado about the world coming to an end, Guy, how she went to mother and
asked if it twisted itself round and round until it came to the end?"

"Don't I though, and the day she asked mother if _vertigo_ meant a
monkey. When mother told her no and laughed, she said it must be some
animal, for she read in the paper that a man went up into a tree and
while there was seized with vertigo."

"And the day she was transferred to another school, when she said she
had a note of transubstantiation."

"Yes, and"--Guy was about to continue, but Agnes declared she was not
going to sit there as a target for their fun, and ran laughing out of
the room.

"What are you going to do with yourselves, girls?" asked their brother,
as lighting a cigar he prepared to go out.

"O we are going to stay at home and have a nice time; you know holidays
don't come very often."

"Well, you women folks have queer ideas of a nice time, if that is