ry fond of Aunt Josephina," said Ray
reflectively. Sara had her lips open, all ready to answer whatever Ray
might say, but she shut them suddenly and the boy went on. "Aunt
Josephina thought a lot of Mother, too. She used to say she knew
there was always a welcome for her at Maple Hollow. It does seem a
pity, Sally dear, for your mother's daughter to send word to Aunt
Josephina, per my mother's son, that there isn't room for her any
longer at Maple Hollow."

"I shall leave it to Willard," said Sara abruptly. "If he says to let
her come, come she shall, even if Dorothy and I have to camp in the
barn."

"I'm going to have a prowl around the garret," said Ray, apropos of
nothing.

"And I shall get the tea ready," answered Sara briskly. "Dorothy will
be home from school very soon, and I hear Uncle Joel stirring. Willard
won't be back till dark, so there is no use waiting for him."

At twilight Sara decided to walk up the lane and meet Willard. She
always liked to meet him thus when he had been away for a whole day.
Sara thought there was nobody in the world as good and dear as
Willard.

It was a dull grey November twilight; the maples in the hollow were
all leafless, and the hawthorn hedge along the lane was sere and
frosted; a little snow had fallen in the afternoon, and lay in broad
patches on the brown fields. The world looked very dull and
dispirited, and Sara sighed. She could not help thinking of the dark
side of things just then. "Everything is wrong," said poor Sara
dolefully. "Willard has to work like a slave, and yet with all his
efforts he can barely pay the interest on the mortgage. And Ray ought
to go to college. But I don't see how we can ever manage. To be sure,
he won't be ready until next fall, but we won't have the money then
any more than now. It would take every bit of a hundred and fifty
dollars to fit him out with books and clothes, and pay for board and
tuition at the academy. If he could just have a year there he could
teach and earn his own way through college. But we might as well hope
for the moon as one hundred and fifty dollars."

Sara sighed again. She was only eighteen, but she felt very old.
Willard was nineteen, and Willard had never had a chance to be young.
His father had died when he was twelve, and he had run the farm since
then, he and Sara together indeed, for Sara was a capital planner and
manager and worker. The little mother had died two years ago, and the
household cares h