ay there floating
in her sea of happiness.

"Why, dear," said the girl, drawing the sheet down from the hidden
finery. "You cold?"

"I guess not," said Sabrina, smiling up at her.

"Did you keep that pretty lace all covered up? What made you, Sabrina?"

"I don't know 's I could tell exactly," said Sabrina, in her gentle
voice. "Now, dear, I'm goin' to get this off an' have my clo'es. I'm
better."

"You do feel better, don't you?" assented Clelia joyously, helping her.

That night they supped together at the table, and when the dusk had
fallen and Sabrina sat by the window breathing in the evening cool, she
said shyly, like a bride:--

"Don't you see, dear, sometimes we put off grief an' we don't need to
have it after all."

"I see about me," said the girl tenderly, "but I don't see as anything
pleasant has happened to you."

"Why," said Sabrina, in a voice so full and sweet that for the moment it
seemed not to be her own hesitating note, "I've had more happiness than
most folks have in their whole life. I've had all there is."

THE CHALLENGE

Mariana Blake, on her way home from Jake Preble's in the autumn
twilight, heard women's voices sounding clearly at a distance,
increasing in volume as they neared. She knew the turn of the road would
hide her from them for a minute or two to come, and depending on that
security she stepped over the wall and crouched behind the undergrowth
at the foot of a wild cherry. They were only her neighbors, Sophronia
Jackson and Lizzie Ann West, with whom she was on the kindliest terms;
but for some reason she felt sensitive to the social eye whenever she
was carrying Jake a basket of her excellent cookery or returning with
the empty dishes. Other neighbors, it was true, contributed delicacies
to his rudimentary housekeeping, though chiefly at festal times like
Thanksgiving and Christmas; but Mariana was conscious that she had kept
an especial charge over him since his sister died and left him alone.
Yet this she was never willing to confess, and though she treasured what
she had elected as her responsibility, it was with an exceptional
shyness.

The voices came nearer at a steady pace, accompanied at length by the
steady tread of Sophronia's low-heeled shoes and the pattering of Lizzie
Ann on the harder side of the road. When they were nearly opposite the
old cherry-tree, Sophronia spoke.

"Mercy! I stepped into a hole."

"Can't you remember that hole?" Lizzie Ann