es me still more
unhappy to see you fretting; I miss my little daughter's brightness
that used to be such a comfort to me."

"Am I a comfort to you, mother?" asked Fern, wistfully, and something
in those earnest gray eyes thrilled the widow's heart with fresh pangs
of memory.

"You are my one bit of sunshine," she answered, fondly, taking the
girl's face between her hands and kissing it almost passionately.
"Keep bright for your poor mother's sake, Fern."

Fern never forgot this little speech. She understood, then, that her
mission was to be her mother's comforter; and with the utmost
sweetness and unselfishness she put aside her own longings for her
brother, and strove to make up for his loss. So Fern bloomed in her
poor home like some lovely flower in a cottage garden, growing up to
womanhood in those rooms over Mrs. Watkins's.

Fern had long since finished her education, and now gave morning
lessons to the vicar's little daughters. In her leisure hours she made
her simple gowns and Fluff's frocks, and taught the child the little
she could be persuaded to learn, for Fluff was a spoiled child and
very backward for her age; and one or two people, Mrs. Watkins among
them, had given it as their opinion that little Florence was not all
there, rather odd and uncanny in fact.

Fern was quite contented with her life. She was fond of teaching and
very fond of her little pupils. Her pleasures were few and simple; a
walk with Crystal or Fluff to look at the shops, perhaps an omnibus
journey and an hour or two's ramble in the Park or Kensington Garden,
a cozy chat with her mother in the evening, sometimes, on grand
occasions, a shilling seat at the Monday or Saturday Popular.

Fern loved pretty things, but she seemed quite satisfied to look at
them through plate glass; a new dress, a few flowers, or a new book
were events in her life. She would sing over her work as she sat
sewing by the window; the gay young voice made people look up, but
they seldom caught a glimpse of the golden-brown head behind the
curtain. Fern had her dreams, like other girls; something, she hardly
knew what, would happen to her some day. There was always a prince in
the fairy stories that she told Fluff, but she never described him.
"What is he like?" Fluff would ask with childish impatience, but Fern
would only blush and smile, and say she did not know. If, sometimes, a
handsome boyish face, not dark like Percy, but with a fair, budding
mustache