's class. Marion was at leisure, her
only duty being to render assistance in the matter of copying wherever a
raised hand indicated that help was needed.

Answering one of these calls she found herself at the extreme end of the
large room, quite near to Grace Dennis' desk, and in passing she noticed
that Gracie, while her book was before her and her pen in hand, was not
writing at all, but that her left hand was shading a face that looked
sad and pale, and covering eyes that might have tears in them. After
fulfilling her duty to the needy scholar she turned back to Grace.

"What is it?" she said, softly, taking the vacant seat by Grace's side,
and touching tenderly the crown of hair that covered the drooping head.
Grace looked up quickly with a gleam of sunshine, through which shone a
tear.

"It is a fit of the blues, I am almost afraid. I am very much ashamed
of myself; I don't feel so very often, Miss Wilbur. I think the feeling
must be what the girls call blues; I am not sure."

"Do you feel in any degree sure what has caused such a remarkable
disease to attack you?" Marion asked, in a low, tender, yet cheery and a
half-amused tone.

The words made Gracie laugh, but the tenderness in the tone seemed to
start another tear.

"You will be amused at me, Miss Wilbur, or ashamed of me, I don't know
which. I am ashamed of myself, but I do feel so forlorn and lonely."

"Lonely!" Marion echoed, with a little start. She realized that she
herself knew in its fulness what that feeling was, but for Gracie
Dennis, treasured as she was in an atmosphere of fatherly love, it was
hard to understand it. "If I had my dear father I don't think I should
feel lonely," she said gently.

"I know," Grace answered; "he is the dearest father a girl ever had, but
there is only a little bit of him mine, Miss Wilbur. I don't mean that
either; I am not selfish. I know he loves me with all his heart, but I
mean his time is so very much occupied that he can only give me very
little bits now and then. It has to be so; it is not his fault. I would
not have him any different, even in this; but then if I had a sister,
don't you see how different it would be? or even a brother, or," and
here Gracie's head dropped low, and her voice quivered. "Miss Wilbur, if
I had a mother, one who loved me, and would sympathize with me and help
me, I think I would be the happiest girl in all the world."

There was every appearance that, with a few more words of