tle for themselves. The pupils of the cooking-school were
beginning the A B C of beauty and neatness. Their rooms were swept
cleaner; their clothes took on a more tidy aspect. With the opening
spring, gardens and court-yards were cleared of their rubbish, and
flower-beds flourished again. Sylvie gave her girls one very instructive
lecture on slips and flower-seeds, and one Saturday they went out to
the woods for ferns and wild flowers. It was only one little corner, to
be sure, but it was the leaven that was presently to do a wide-spread
work.

Hope Mills took up its steady march again. Half a dozen new hands were
added, though Jack wished that he could find employment for some of the
poor souls that besieged him daily. If times really were coming better,
if orders only would increase, and he could with safety enlarge his
borders! But "slow and steady" was his motto. He was not one to
disparage the present by exaggerating the advantages of the future.

There was one home that these cordial little excitements never entered.
The three souls in it, although they should have been very near and
dear, wrapped themselves in their own thoughts and sorrows, and took no
note of their fellows.

Mrs. Lawrence heeded the outward change least of the three. She had her
pretty room, her glowing fire in winter, her fur slippers, and zephyr
shawls; her late breakfast in bed, then her luxurious dressing-gown, and
her books. She had settled herself into the _role_ of an invalid for the
remainder of her days. The loss and suffering had not taken her out of
herself, or raised her narrow, vapid nature. She was at once patient and
complaining,--even her affection for her son was combined with great
mental and moral weakness. She was profoundly grieved that he should
have been compelled to accept so unsuitable a position; but to her it
was only a temporary event. Something _must_ happen. In some mysterious
way they would come back to their former grandeur,--not that she cared
especially, but for the sake of Fred and Irene. Then for days she would
lose herself in the joys and sorrows of her heroines. To such people
novel-reading is certainly a godsend. A readable book was as
exhilarating to her as a splendid morning drive or a good deed is to
many others. She had society without being bored. She had wit, poetry,
art, music, travels, dinners, and balls, with no worry, no late hours,
or fatigue.

Irene could not so yield up her personality. Sh