and just now he wanted to please even her. More than
that, it was very pleasant to see the boys; and while he was playing
games he forgot his sorrow, and forgot his mother's sad face. There was
one thing, however, which he could not do: he had not the heart to be
captain, and drill his company, just now.

"Horace," said Grace, as they were sitting on the piazza steps one
morning, "I heard ma tell grandma yesterday, you'd been a better boy
this week than you had been before since--since--pa went away."

"Did she?" cried Horace, eagerly; "where was she when she said it? What
did grandma say? Did aunt Madge hear her?"

"Yes, aunt Madge heard her, and she said she always knew Horace would be
a good boy if he would only think."

"Well, I _do_ think," replied Horace, looking very much pleased; "I
think about all the time."

"But then, Horace, you know how you've acted some days!"

"Well, I don't care. Aunt Madge says 'tisn't so easy for boys to be
good."

Grace opened her round blue eyes in wonder.

"Why, Horace, I have to make my own bed, and sweep and dust my room,
and take care of my drawers. Only think of that; and Prudy always round
into things, you know! Then I have to sew, O, so much! I reckon you
wouldn't find it very easy being a girl."

"Poh! don't I have to feed the chickens, and bring in the eggs, and go
for the cows? And when we lived home----"

Here Horace broke down; he could not think of home without remembering
his father.

Grace burst into tears. The word "home" had called up a beautiful
picture of her father and mother sitting on the sofa in the library,
Horace and Pincher lying on the floor, the door open from the balcony,
and the moon filling the room with a soft light; her father had a smile
on his face, and was holding her hand.

Ah! Grace, and Horace, and their mother would see many such pictures of
memory.

"Well, sister," said Horace, speaking quite slowly, and looking down at
the grass, "what do I do that's bad?"

"Why, Horace, I shouldn't think you'd ask! Blowing gunpowder, and
running off into the woods, and most killing Pincher, and going trouting
down to the 'crick' with your best clothes on, and disobeying your ma,
and----"

"Sayin' bad words," added Horace, "but I stopped that this morning."

"What do you mean, Horace?"

"O, I said over all the bad things I could think of; not the swearin'
words, you know, but 'shucks,' and 'gallus,' and 'bully,' and 'by
hokey,' and 'by