nd papers sent from dozens
of schools, and from the quantity of them one would fancy that every
school in the country was represented. This was the result of an
advertisement in the "Times" for a school in which young children are
received, carefully trained, thoroughly taught, and which can furnish
unquestionable references regarding its social standing and other
qualifications.

It was a handsome, but seriously perplexed, face which bent over the
letters, and more than once the shapely hand was raised to the puckered
forehead and the fingers thrust impatiently through the golden brown hair,
setting it on end and causing its owner to look more distracted than
ever.

"Poor, wee lassie, you little realize what a problem you are to me. Would
to God the one best qualified to solve it could have been spared to you,"
and the handsome head fell forward upon the hands, as tears of bitter
anguish flooded the brown eyes.

Can anything be more pathetic than a strong man's tears? And Clayton
Reeve's were wrung from an almost despairing heart.

For ten years his life had been a dream of happiness. At twenty-five he
had married a beautiful, talented girl, who made his home as nearly
perfect as a home can be made, and when, three years later, a little
daughter, her mother's living image, came to live with them, he felt that
he had no more to ask for. Seven years slipped away, as only years of
perfect happiness can slip, and then came the end. The beautiful wife and
mother went to sleep forever, leaving the dear husband and lovely little
daughter alone. For six months Mr. Reeve strove to fill the mother's
place, but until she was taken from him he had never realized how
perfectly and completely his almost idolized wife had filled his home,
conducting all so quietly and gracefully that even those nearest and
dearest never suspected how much thought she had given to their comfort
until her firm, yet gentle, rule was missed.

Happily, Toinette was too young to fully appreciate her loss, and although
she grieved in her childish way for the sweet, smiling mother who had so
loved her, it was a child's blessed evanescent grief, which could find
consolation in her pets and dollies, and--blessed boon--forget.

But Clayton Reeve never forgot, not for one moment; and though the six
months had in a measure softened his grief, his sense of loss and
loneliness increased each day, until at last he could no longer endure the
sight of the home