arrival, Hetty sat in the schoolroom
telling a Bible story to her pupils, George Grantham and small
Rebecca; the one aged eight, the other barely five. They were by no
means clever children; but they knew a good story when they heard
one, and Hetty held them to the adventures of Joseph and his
Brethren, although great masses of snow were sliding off the roof,
and every now and then toppling down past the window with a rush--
which every child knows to be fascinating. For the black frost had
broken up at last in a twelve hours' downfall of snow, and this in
turn had yielded to a soft southerly wind. The morning sunshine
poured in through the school-room window and took all colour out of
the sea-coal fire.

"One night Joseph dreamed a dream which he told next morning to his
brothers. And his dream was that they were all in the harvest-field,
binding sheaves: and when Joseph had bound his sheaf, it stood
upright, but the other sheaves around slid and fell flat, as if they
were bowing on their faces before it. When he told this, it made his
brothers angry, because it seemed to mean that he would be a greater
man than any of them."

"I don't wonder they were angry," broke in George, who was the
Granthams' son and heir, and had a baby brother of whom he tried hard
not to be jealous. "Joseph wasn't the oldest, was he?"

"No: he was the youngest of all, except Benjamin."

"And even if he dreamed it, he needn't have gone about bragging.
It was bad enough, his having that coat of many colours. I say, Miss
Wesley--you're not a boy, of course--but how would _you_ feel if your
father made everything of one of your brothers?"

"I wonder if he dreamed it on a Friday?" piped Rebecca.

"Why, child?"

"Because Martha says"--Martha was the Granthams' cook--"that Friday's
dream on Saturday told is bound to come true before you are old."

"We shall find out if it came true. Go on, Miss Wesley."

"But if it _was_ Friday's dream," Rebecca persisted, "and he wanted
it to come true, he couldn't help telling it."

"Couldn't help being a sneak, I suppose you mean!"

A sound outside the window cut short this argument. All glanced up:
but it came this time from no avalanche of snow. Someone had planted
a ladder against the house, and the top of the ladder was scraping
against the window-sill.

"Too short by six feet," Hetty heard a voice say, and held her
breath. The ladder was joggled a little and fixed again. Footsteps