ny more, but that part was mercifully hidden in the dream.

Miss Vilda's slumber was troubled. She seemed to be walking through
peaceful meadows, brown with autumn, when all at once there rose in the
path steep hills and rocky mountains ... She felt too tired and too old
to climb, but there was nothing else to be done ... And just as she
began the toilsome ascent, a little child appeared, and catching her
helplessly by the skirts implored to be taken with her ... And she
refused and went on alone ... but, miracle of miracles, when she reached
the crest of the first hill the child was there before her, still
beseeching to be carried ... And again she refused, and again she
wearily climbed the heights alone, always meeting the child when she
reached their summits, and always enacting the same scene.... At last
she cried in despair, "Ask me no more, for I have not even strength
enough for my own needs!" ... And the child said, "I will help you;" and
straightway crept into her arms and nestled there as one who would not
be denied ... and she took up her burden and walked.... And as she
climbed the weight grew lighter and lighter, till at length the clinging
arms seemed to give her peace and strength ... and when she neared the
crest of the highest mountain she felt new life throbbing in her veins
and new hopes stirring in her heart, and she remembered no more the pain
and weariness of her journey.... And all at once a bright angel appeared
to her and traced the letters of a word upon her forehead and took the
child from her arms and disappeared.... And the angel had the lovely
smile and sad eyes of Martha ... and the word she traced on Miss Vilda's
forehead was "Inasmuch"!

SCENE VII.

_The Old Homestead._

MISTRESS AND MAID FIND TO THEIR AMAZEMENT THAT A CHILD, MORE THAN ALL
OTHER GIFTS, BRINGS HOPE WITH IT AND FORWARD LOOKING THOUGHTS.

It was called the White Farm, not because that was an unusual color in
Pleasant River. Nineteen out of every twenty houses in the village were
painted white, for it had not then entered the casual mind that any
other course was desirable or possible. Occasionally, a man of riotous
imagination would substitute two shades of buff, or make the back of his
barn red, but the spirit of invention stopped there, and the majority of
sane people went on painting white. But Miss Avilda Cummins was blessed
with a larger income than most of the inhabitants of Pleasant River, and
all her bu