r; isn't she?"

"Are thy lessons at school too hard for thee, Susan?"

Mrs. Read saw that Susy was very reluctant about opening her heart,
although she had said she could talk to her grandmother "so easy."

"No, indeed, grandma; my lessons are not too hard. I'm a real good
scholar--one of the best in school for my age."

This was a fact. Some people would have chidden Susy for it; but Mrs.
Read reflected that the child was only telling the simple truth, and had
no idea of boasting. She was not a little girl who would intrude such
remarks about herself upon strangers. But when she and her grandma were
talking together confidentially, she thought it made all the difference
in the world; as indeed it did.

"I have a great deal to trouble me," said Susy, and the "evening-blue"
of her eyes clouded over, till there were signs of a shower. "I thought
my pony would make me happy as long as I lived; but it hasn't. One thing
that I feel bad about is--well, it's turning over a new leaf. When New
Year's comes, I'm going to do it, and don't; so I wait till my birthday,
and then I don't. It seems as if I'd tried about a thousand New Years
and birthdays to turn over that leaf."

Grandma smiled, but did not interrupt Susy.

"I think I should be real good," continued the child, "if it wasn't such
hard work. I can't be orderly, grandma--not much; and then Dotty upsets
everything. Sometimes I have to hold my breath to keep patient.

"Well, grandma, my birthday comes to-morrow, the 8th of April. I like
it well enough; only there's one reason why I don't like it at all, and
that is a Bible reason. It's so dreadful that I can't bear to say it to
you," said Susy, shuddering, and lowering her voice to a whisper; "I
don't want to grow up, for I shall have to marry Freddy Jackson."

Grandma tried to look serious.

"Who put such a foolish idea into thy head, child?"

"Cousin Percy told me last night," answered Susy, solemnly. "How can you
laugh when it's all in the Bible, grandma? I never told anybody before.
Wait; I'll show you the verse. I've put a mark at the place."

Susy brought her Bible to her grandmother, and, opening it at the
thirty-first chapter of Proverbs, pointed, with a trembling finger, to
the eighth verse, which Mrs. Read read aloud,--

"Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed
to destruction."

"Now Percy says that's a sure sign! I told him, O, dear! Freddy ought to
marry a dumb woman