and
called out: "Let me have your jacket to hang up, my dear. There's some
shelves at this end for your hats. And now I'll help you unpack.
You'll never begin to feel at home till you're all unpacked and put
away. Nobody does."

It was a real satisfaction to Mrs. Joyce to notice how few clothes
Eyebright possessed, and how shabby they were. All the time that she
folded, and arranged, she was saying to herself, gleefully "She wants
this, she needs that: she must have all sorts of things at once.
To-morrow I'll buy her a nice Henrietta cloth, and a cashmere for
every day, and a pretty wrap of some kind and a hat."

She betrayed the direction of her thoughts by turning suddenly with
the question,--

"What sized gloves do you wear, my dear?"

"I don't know," was the reply. "I haven't had any gloves for two
years, except a pair of worsted mittens last winter."

"Gracious!" said Mrs. Joyce, but I think she was rather pleased than
otherwise. The truth was, all her life long she had been "spoiling"
for a daughter to pet and make much of, and now, at last, her chance
had come. "Boys are all very well," she told Mr. Joyce that night.
"But once they get into roundabouts, there is absolutely nothing more
which their mothers can do for them in the way of clothes. Girls are
different. I always knew that I should like a girl to look after, and
this seems a dear child, Benjamin. I'm sure I shall be fond of her."

The tea-bell rang in the midst of the unpacking; but, as Mrs. Joyce
observed, they had the rest of the week before them, and it didn't
matter a bit; so she hurried Eyebright downstairs, and into a cheerful
dining-room. Cheerfulness seemed the main characteristic of the Joyce
establishment. It was not at all an elegant house,--not even, I am
sorry to say, a tasteful one. Nothing could possibly be uglier or more
common-place than the furniture, the curtains, or the flaps of green
reps above the curtains, known to village circles as "lamberkins," and
the pride of Mrs. Joyce's heart. The carpets and wall paper had no
affinity with each other, and both would have horrified an artist in
home decoration. But everywhere, all through the house, were neatness,
solid comfort, and that spirit of family affection which makes any
house pleasant, no matter how pretty or how ugly it may be; and this
atmosphere of loving-kindness was as reviving to Eyebright's drooping
spirits as real sunshine is to a real plant, drenched and beaten do