bara. "For gallant and
meritorious services. It will be, 'Our friend Mrs. Hobart; a near
neighbor of ours; she was with us all that terrible night of the fire,
you know.' It will be a great honor; but it won't be a full
commission."

Harry laughed.

"Queer things happen when you are with us," said Barbara. "First,
there was the whirlwind, last year,--and now the fire."

"After the whirlwind and the fire--" said Harry.

"I wasn't thinking of the Old Testament," interrupted Barbara.

"Came a still, small voice," persisted Harry. "If I'm wicked, Barbara,
I can't help it. You put it into my head."

"I don't see any wickedness," answered Barbara, quickly. "That was the
voice of the Lord. I suppose it is always coming."

"Then, Barbara--"

Then Mrs. Holabird walked away again.

The next day--_that_ day, after our eleven o'clock breakfast--Harry
came back, and was at Westover all day long.

Barbara got up into mother's room at evening, alone with her. She
brought a cricket, and came and sat down beside her, and put her cheek
upon her knee.

"Mother," she said, softly, "I don't see but you'll have to get me
ready, and let me go."

"My dear child! When? What do you mean?"

"Right off. Harry is under orders, you know. And they may hardly
ever be so nice again. And--if we _are_ going through the world
together--mightn't we as well begin to go?"

"Why, Barbara, you take my breath away! But then you always do! What
is it?"

"It's the Katahdin, fitting out at New York to join the European
squadron. Commander Shapleigh is a great friend of Harry's; his wife
and daughter are in New York, going out, by Southampton steamer, when
the frigate leaves, to meet him there. They would take me, he says;
and--that's what Harry wants, mother. There'll be a little while
first,--as much, perhaps, as we should ever have."

"Barbara, my darling! But you've nothing ready!"

"No, I suppose not. I never do have. Everything is an emergency with
me; but I always emerge! I can get things in London," she added.
"Everybody does."

The end of it was that Mrs. Holabird had to catch her breath again, as
mothers do; and that Barbara is getting ready to be married just as
she does everything else.

Rose has some nice things--laid away, new; she always has; and mother
has unsuspected treasures; and we all had new silk dresses for
Leslie's wedding, and Ruth had a bright idea about that.

"I'm as tall as either of you, now," she said; "and