ly of her, they
treasured as priceless, and wet them with many a sad tear, while heart
and lips pleaded for the return of the dear one. The year of anxiety had
told on Mrs. Dering, for the soft brown hair was thickly lined with
grey, and there was a never-dying look of prayerful anxiety in her face,
as though in some way, her life-work had been remiss and the fault of
this one, gone astray, lay at her door. Still she never once gave up
hope that at some time God would return this dear one to her, though it
required constant prayer to strengthen the faith that trembled on the
threshold of this affliction.

Under the strain of mental and physical work, her health was slowly
giving way, and for many weeks there had been the anxious question,
"what can be done to relieve mama?" and there had been no way
discovered, for money was low, and each one already doing her utmost; so
Mrs. Dering held her position at the seminary, and was obliged to
content herself with one visit home a week, and sometimes not even
that, for the hack drive was so fatiguing, and besides, it cost fifty
cents every time.

Well, after all, God never fails to give us something to cheer our
flagging steps, never fails to know when a burdened child is falling
with its load, and never fails to take the hand outstretched to Him, and
help that child along!

In the midst of an anxious controversy one evening, when Mrs. Dering had
just arrived home, and was lying exhausted on the lounge; Olive came in
from the store and brought a letter with the Boston post mark; it proved
to be from Mr. Dering's cousin, a wealthy widow, with an only son whose
health was failing, and for whom the doctor prescribed a summer's rest,
and relief from study. She had once visited the Dering home, and said
she knew of no one, to whom she would so willingly trust her boy, in his
delicate health, as to Robert's wife. The price named for his board was
lavishly liberal, and filled the long felt want, for it would more than
admit of mother's being free and at home to rest, and regain her own
health and strength.

So this was what Kat, viewing matters from a personal standpoint,
thought was "horrible," and what Kittie tried to reconcile her to by
reviewing the good things that would result from it. Bea was to room
with Olive, and the sunny front room was fixed for the coming invalid,
and it is a pity that all the knick-knacks arranged by the girls could
not have retained all the curious