chair; a
cozy-looking, bright-covered old-fashioned lounge; a tiny centre-table,
instead of the square, boxy-looking thing that she had; not very
extravagant her notions were, just a suggestion of comfort and a touch
of brightness for her beauty-loving eyes to dwell on; but these home
things, and these bright things, cost money, more money than she felt at
liberty to spend.

When her necessary expenses of books and dress, and a dozen apparently
trifling incidentals were met, there was little enough left to send to
that far-away, struggling uncle and aunt, who needed her help sadly
enough, and who had shared their little with her in earlier days.

There was no special love about this offering of hers; it was just a
matter of hard duty; they had taken care of her in her orphanhood, a
grave, preoccupied sort of care, bestowing little time and no love on
her that she could discover; at the same time they had never either of
them been unkind, and they had fed and clothed her, and never said in
her presence that they grudged it; they had never asked her for any
return, never seemed to expect any; and they were regularly surprised
every half year when the remittance came.

But so far as that was concerned Marion did not know it; they were a
very undemonstrative people. Uncle Reuben had told her once that she
need not do it, that they had not expected it of her; and Aunt Hannah
had added, "No more they didn't." But Marion had hushed them both by a
decided sentence, to the effect that it was nothing more than ordinary
justice and decency. And she did not know even now that the gratitude
they might have expressed was hushed back by her cold, business-like
words.

Still, the remittances always went; it had required some special
scrimping to make the check the same as usual, and yet bring in
Chautauqua; it had been delayed beyond its usual time by these new
departures, and it was on this particular evening that she was getting
it ready for the mail. For seven years, twice a year, she had regularly
written her note:

AUNT HANNAH:--I inclose in this letter a check
for ----. I hope you are as well as usual.
In haste,
M. J. WILBUR.

This, or a kindred sentence as brief and as much to the point. To-night
her fingers had played with the pen instead of writing, and at last,
with a curious smile hovering around her lip, she wrote the