o her fine, high-bred
face. For one, at least, she had opened the way to the Fortunate Isles,
where one's daily work is one's daily happiness, and nothing is so poor
as to be without its own appealing beauty.

As time went on, Iris found deep and satisfying pleasure in the
countless little things that were done each day. She piled the clean
linen in orderly rows upon the shelves, delighting in the unnameable
freshness made by wind and sun; sniffed appreciatively at the cedar
chest which stood in a recess of the upper hall, and climbed many a
chair to fasten bunches of fragrant herbs, gathered with her own hands,
to the rafters in the attic.

She washed the fine old china, rubbed the mahogany till she could see
her face in it, and kept the silver shining. "A gentlewoman," Aunt Peace
had said, "will always be independent of her servants, and there are
certain things no gentlewoman will trust her servants to do."

Upon this foundation, Aunt Peace had reared the beautiful superstructure
of her life. Her hands were capable and strong, yet soft and white. As
we learn to love the things we take care of, so every household
possession became dear to her, and repaid her for her labours an
hundred-fold.

To be sure of doing the very best for her adopted daughter, Miss Field
had, for many years, kept house without a servant. Now, at seventy-five,
she had grudgingly admitted one maid into her sanctum, but some of the
work still fell to Iris, and no one ever doubted for an instant that the
head of the household vigilantly guarded her own rights.

For a long time Iris had known how useless it was--that there had never
been a moment when the old lady could not have had a retinue of servants
at her command, but had it been useless after all? Remembering the child
she had been, Iris could not but see the immeasurable advance the woman
had made.

"Someday, my child," Aunt Peace had said, "when your adopted mother is
laid away with her ancestors in the churchyard, you will bless me for
what I have done. You will see that wherever you happen to be, in
whatever station of life God may be pleased to place you after I am
gone, you have one thing which cannot be taken away from you--the
power to make for yourself a home. You will be sure of your comfort
independently, and you will never be at the mercy of the ignorant and
the untrained. In more than one sense," went on Miss Field, smiling,
"you will have the gift of Peace."

In the hou