the floor, and began to sing over her work. A pretty sight it
was,--the low, dark room with the heavy shadows in its corners; all the
light and color drawn to a focus in the middle of it; Sharley, with her
head bent--bits of silk like broken rainbows tossed about her--and that
little musing smile, considering gravely, Should the white squares of
the plaid turn outward? and where should she put the coral? and would it
be becoming after all? A pretty, girlish sight, and you may laugh at it
if you choose; but there was a prettier woman's tenderness underlying
it, just as a strain of fine, coy sadness will wind through a mazourka
or a waltz. For who would see the poor little hat to-morrow at church?
and would he like it? and when he came to-morrow night,--for of course
he would come to-morrow night,--would he tell her so?

When everybody else was in bed and the house still, Sharley locked her
door, furtively stole to the bureau-glass, shyly tied on that hat, and
more shyly peeped in. A flutter of October colors and two great brown
eyes looked back at her encouragingly.

"I should like to be pretty," said Sharley, and asked the next minute to
be forgiven for the vanity. "At any rate," by way of modification, "I
should like to be pretty to-morrow."

She prayed for Halcombe Dike when she kneeled, with her face hidden in
her white bed, to say "Our Father." I believe she had prayed for him now
every night for a year. Not that there was any need of it, she reasoned,
for was he not a great deal better than she could ever be? Far above
her; oh, as far above her as the shining of the stars was above the
shining of the maple-tree; but perhaps if she prayed very hard they
would give one extra, beautiful angel charge over him. Then, was it not
quite right to pray for one's old friends? Besides--besides, they had a
pleasant sound, those two words: "_Our_ Father."

"I will be good to-morrow," said Sharley, dropping into sleep.
"Mother's head will ache, and I can go to church. I will listen to the
minister, and I won't plan out my winter dresses in prayer-time. I won't
be cross to Moppet, nor shake Methuselah. I will be good. Hal will help
me to be good. I shall see him in the morning,--in the morning."

Sharley's self-knowledge, like the rest of her, was in the bud yet.

Her Sun-day, her one warm, shining day, opened all in a glow. She danced
down stairs at ten o'clock in the new hat, in a haze of merry colors.
She had got breakfast