ough there were
dreams of an open Polar Sea, no one was disturbing it. We had a great
American Desert, and some wild lands the other side of the Rocky
Mountains. An intrepid young explorer, John Charles Fremont, had
discovered an inland sea which he had named Salt Lake, and then gone up
to Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River.

He had started again now to survey California and Oregon. We thought
Kansas and Nebraska very far West in those days, and the Pacific coast
was an almost unknown land. We had just ratified a treaty with China,
after long obstinacy on their part, and Japan was still The Hermit
Kingdom and the Mikado an unknown quantity.

And so everybody was talking war. But then it was so far away one didn't
really need to be frightened unless we had war with England.

There were various other matters that quite disturbed the little girl.
It had not seemed strange in the summer to have Dr. Hoffman come and
take Margaret out driving, or for an evening walk. But now he began to
come on Sunday afternoon and stay to tea. Mrs. Underhill was very chatty
and pleasant with him. She had accepted the fact of Margaret's
engagement, and to tell the truth was really proud of it. Already she
was beginning to "lay by," as people phrased it, regardless of Lindley
Murray, for her wedding outfit. There were a few choice things of Cousin
Lois' that she meant for her. Pieces of muslin came in the house and
were cut up into sheets and pillow-cases. They were all to be sewed
over-seam and hemmed by hand. A year would be none too long in which to
get ready.

Josie one day said something about Margaret being engaged. Hanny made no
reply. She went home in a strange mood. To be sure, Steve had married
Dolly, but that was different. How could Margaret leave them all and go
away with some one who did not belong to them! She could not understand
the mystery. It was as puzzling as Cousin Lois' death. She did not know
then it was a mystery even to those who loved, and the poets who wrote
about it.

Her mother sat by the front basement window sewing. Martha was finishing
the ironing and singing:

"O how happy are they
Who their Saviour obey
And have laid up their treasure above."

Martha had been converted the winter before and joined the Methodist
church in Norfolk Street. The little girl went with her sometimes to the
early prayer-meeting Sunday evening, for she was enraptured with the
singing.

But she went to her