I think it will come out all right, auntie, truly," she ended.
"I shall get them again to-morrow morning. Mr. Blodgett said
he'd telegraph to have the Crosspatch Conduc--I mean the
_conductor_--bring them with him to-morrow. It isn't likely anybody
would steal a school satchel of books!" The bright voice ran on,
quite gay and untroubled again. But Aunt Hope put up her hand and
felt about for the laughing lips, to hush them. It had grown dark in
the room.

"Glory, I am going to tell you a story," Aunt Hope said quietly. "You
are to sit a little closer to me and listen like a good little girl.
Don't speak, dear."

"I won't, auntie."

"There was another girl once," began Aunt Hope's gentle voice. "She
had two things she loved especially--an Ambition and a Brother. She
spelled them both with capitals, they were so dear to her. Sometimes
she told herself she hardly knew which one she loved the better. But
there came a time when she must choose between them, and then she
knew. Of course it was the Brother. She put the Ambition away on a
high shelf where she could not go to it too often and cry over it.
'Stay there awhile,' she said. 'Some day I shall come and take you
down and live with you again. Just now I must take care of my
Brother.'

"For the girl and her Brother were all alone in the world, and she
was the older. He was a little thing, and she was all the mother he
had. For fifteen years she took care of him, and then one day she
found time to take the Ambition down from the high shelf--she had not
had time before. She took it down and clasped it in the old way to
her breast. 'Oh, ho!' she laughed--she was so glad!--'Oh, _now_ I
have time for you! You and I will never part again.' And she was as
happy as a little child over a lost treasure. It did not seem to
dismay her because she was not a girl any longer. Women could have
Ambitions, she said. And what did she do but get out her study books
and wipe off the dust of years! It lay on them discouragingly thick
and white, but she laughed in its face.

"That was because she did not know. Sometimes it is better not to
know. Do you think it would have been kind to let her know on that
first sweet day? At any rate she never lost that day. She had it with
her always afterward--the one beautiful, long day she and her
Ambition spent together again, after she took it down from the shelf.
They spent it all among the dusted books.

"The next day there was a terrible acci