e her
confidence, so that in a humble way I might be privileged to stand
between her and perdition.

It was a beautiful night, one of those when the moon relinquishes her
court to the little stars. Vehicular traffic had ceased, and the only
sound breaking the stillness of the great frostless, silver-spangled
darkness was the panting of the steam-engines and the murmur of the
river where half a mile down it took a slight fall over boulders. The
electric lights of the town twinkled in the near distance, and farther
east was a faint glow beyond the horizon, rightly or wrongly
attributed to the lights of the metropolis. After a time it grew
chilly, and I was glad to return to my bed. Dawn was separated from me
by a thin wooden partition, and her strong healthy breathing was
plainly discernible as she lay like an opening rose in maiden slumber,
but there was now no sound from the room of the other poor girl--a
rose devoured by the worm in its core.

Next morning, however, she appeared at breakfast, for Clay's was not a
house wherein one felt encouraged to coddle themselves without
exceptional reason, and to all but a suspicious or hypercritical
observer she seemed as usual.

Carry was going to church.

"I haven't been able to go this three weeks because my dress wasn't
finished, and next Sunday will be my week in the kitchen, so if I
don't go now I won't be able to show it for a fortnight," she
announced.

"Well, I ain't going," said grandma. "Gimme back your porridge, I
forgot to dose it"--this to Andrew, on whose oatmeal she had omitted
to put sugar and milk. "I've always found church is a good deal of
bother when you have any important work. I contribute to the stipend;
that ought to be enough for 'em. If one spent all their time running
to church they would have no money to give to it, an' I never yet see
praying make a living for any one but the parsons."

Thus, Dawn being engaged in the kitchen, and her Uncle Jake keeping
her company there while he perused the 'Noonoon Advertiser,' which
descended to him on Sunday morning, Andrew having gone away with Jack
Bray, and Miss Flipp being invisible, grandma and I were left together
to enjoy a small fire in the dining-room, so I took this opportunity
of inquiring how Jim Clay had managed to capture her. This sort of
thing interested me; I liked life in the actuality where there was no
counterfeit or make-believe to offend the sense of just proportions.
Not that I do