a check for her
graduation present, so she hastily tore it open. But no check dropped out.
Instead, there was a long letter, and she sat down to read.

"My dear Mary," it began. "A few days ago, I chanced to be on the
beach when you were there with your friend, and I heard you say to
her, 'I wish my mother were as beautiful as yours. Mother can't even
go down the street with me for she drags her foot so that everybody
turns and looks at us and it makes me feel so conspicuous. You must
be very proud of your mother.' So I have decided that for your
graduation gift, I shall give you a story instead of the check that
I intended to give you. The check can wait."

"A story," said Mary to herself. "That is worse than the old beads. What a
house of queer people this is! Anyway, I am curious to see what sort of a
story he could write." So she read on.

"Seventeen years ago there came to a town in the eastern part of
Pennsylvania a young man and his bride. Just a slip of a girl she
was, but her face was full of sunshine and every one soon loved her.
She had beautiful wavy hair and bright, blue eyes and a cheery smile.
After they had been there for a while, their story came to be known,
for his father was the great mill owner in a near-by town. When the
young man had married the High School girl instead of the wealthy one
whom the father had chosen for him, there had been a lot of trouble
and the young man had been told to leave home with his bride and
expect no more help from the father.

"Now the young man had never worked, so it was very hard for him, but
she also worked and, little by little, they bought the things needed
in the tiny home on the hill, and they were very happy. Then, one
day, a scaffold fell and they brought the young husband to the little
wife all bruised and bleeding, and that very night a tiny girl came
to the home to live. The neighbors helped all they could, but in a
few days the father of the baby was gone, and the little girl-wife
was left alone to care for the baby.

"When the mill owner heard of the death of the son and the birth of
the little girl, he sent to the mother and said: 'We will take the
little girl and bring it up as our own if you will give it to us and
have no more to do with it.' But the brave little woman sent back
answer, 'As long as I have a mind with which to think and two hands
with which to work, I can and will s