its exercise, "Hand painted pictures" were held in little
esteem in Riverboro, where the cheerful chromo or the dignified steel
engraving were respected and valued. There was a slight, a very slight
hope, that Rebecca might be allowed a few music lessons from Miss
Morton, who played the church cabinet organ, but this depended entirely
upon whether Mrs. Morton would decide to accept a hayrack in return for
a year's instruction from her daughter. She had the matter under
advisement, but a doubt as to whether or not she would sell or rent her
hayfields kept her from coming to a conclusion. Music, in common with
all other accomplishments, was viewed by Miss Miranda as a trivial,
useless, and foolish amusement, but she allowed Rebecca an hour a day
for practice on the old piano, and a little extra time for lessons, if
Jane could secure them without payment of actual cash.

The news from Sunnybrook Farm was hopeful rather than otherwise. Cousin
Ann's husband had died, and John, Rebecca's favorite brother, had gone
to be the man of the house to the widowed cousin. He was to have good
schooling in return for his care of the horse and cow and barn, and
what was still more dazzling, the use of the old doctor's medical
library of two or three dozen volumes. John's whole heart was set on
becoming a country doctor, with Rebecca to keep house for him, and the
vision seemed now so true, so near, that he could almost imagine his
horse ploughing through snowdrifts on errands of mercy, or, less
dramatic but none the less attractive, could see a physician's neat
turncut trundling along the shady country roads, a medicine case
between his, Dr. Randall's, feet, and Miss Rebecca Randall sitting in a
black silk dress by his side.

Hannah now wore her hair in a coil and her dresses a trifle below her
ankles, these concessions being due to her extreme height. Mark had
broken his collar bone, but it was healing well. Little Mira was
growing very pretty. There was even a rumor that the projected railroad
from Temperance to Plumville might go near the Randall farm, in which
case land would rise in value from nothing-at-all an acre to something
at least resembling a price. Mrs. Randall refused to consider any
improvement in their financial condition as a possibility. Content to
work from sunrise to sunset to gain a mere subsistence for her
children, she lived in their future, not in her own present, as a
mother is wont to do when her own lot seem