after sketch and
exclaiming over each. They were crude little efforts, faulty in
drawing and in color; but the spirit was there, and Sandy had a vague
instinct for the essence of things.

"I believe you're the real kind, Martha. They're crooked a bit, but
they've got the feel of the woods in 'em, all right. I can just hear
the water going over those stones."

Martha's eyes glowed at the praise. For a year she had reached
forward blindly toward some outlet for her cramped, limited existence,
and suddenly a way seemed open toward the light.

"I wanted to learn how before I showed you," she said. "I am never
going to show them to any one but you and mother and father."

"But you must go somewhere to study," cried Sandy. "It's a great
artist you'll be some day."

She shook her head. "It's not for me, Sandy. I'll always be like a
little beggar girl that peeps through the fence into a beautiful
garden. I know all the wonderful things are there, but I'll never get
to them."

"But ye will," cried Sandy, hot with sympathy. "I'll be making money
some day, and I'll send ye to the finest master in the country; and
you will be getting well and strong, and we'll go--"

Mr. Meech, shuffling up the walk toward them, interrupted. "Studying
for the examination, eh? That's right, my boy. The judge tells me
that you have a good chance to win the scholarship."

"Did he, now?" said Sandy, with shameless pleasure; "and you, Mr.
Meech, do ye think the same?"

"I certainly do," said Mr. Meech. "Anybody that can accomplish the
work you do at home, and hold your record at the academy, stands an
excellent chance."

Sandy thought so, too, but he tried to be modest. "If it'll be in me,
it will come out," he said with suppressed triumph as he swung his
books across his shoulder and started home.

Martha's eyes followed him wistfully, and she hoped for a backward
look before he turned in at the door. But he was absorbed in sailing a
broomstick across Aunt Melvy's pathway, causing her to drop her
basket and start after him in hot pursuit.

That evening the judge glanced across the table with great
satisfaction at Sandy, who was apparently buried in his Vergil. The
boy, after all, was a student; he was justifying the money and time
that had been spent upon him; he was proving a credit to his
benefactor's judgment and to his knowledge of human nature.

"Would ye mind telling me a word that rhymes with lance?" broke in
Sandy after an ho