he spiritual world.

Winter is, of course, Margaret's time of chief anxiety, and then her
loving efforts are redoubled to detain her beloved spirit in an
inclement world. Each winter passed in safety seems a personal victory
over death. How anxiously she watches for the first sign of the
returning spring, how eagerly she brings the news of early blade and
bud, and with the first violet she feels that the danger is over for
another year. When the spring is so afire that she is able to fill her
mother's lap with a fragrant heap of crocus and daffodil, she dares at
last to laugh and say,

"Now confess, mother, that you won't find sweeter flowers even in
heaven."

And when the thrush is on the apple bough outside the window, Margaret
will sometimes employ the same gentle raillery.

"Do you think, mother," she will say, "that an angel could sing sweeter
than that thrush?"

"You seem very sure, Margaret, that I am going to heaven," the old
mother will sometimes say, with one of her arch old smiles; "but do you
know that I stole two peppermints yesterday?"

"You did!" says Margaret.

"I did indeed! and they have been on my conscience ever since."

"Really, mother! I don't know what to say," answers Margaret. "I had no
idea that you are so wicked."

Many such little games the two play together, as the days go by; and
often at bedtime, as Margaret tucks her mother into bed, she asks her:

"Are you comfortable, dear? Do you really think you would be much more
comfortable in heaven?"

Or sometimes she will draw aside the window-curtains and say:

"Look at the stars, mother.... Don't you think we get the best view of
them down here?"

So it is that Margaret persuades her mother to delay her journey a
little while.

Kittie's Sister Josephine

BY ELIZABETH JORDAN

Kittie James told me this story about her sister Josephine, and when she
saw my eye light up the way the true artist's does when he hears a good
plot, she said I might use it, if I liked, the next time I "practised
literature."

I don't think that was a very nice way to say it, especially when one
remembers that Sister Irmingarde read three of my stories to the class
in four months; and as I only write one every week, you can see yourself
what a good average that was. But it takes noble souls to be humble in
the presence of the gifted, and enthusiastic over their success, so only
two of my classmates seemed really happy when Sister Irmingarde