e mother gazing with pride and joy into the beautiful blooming face of
her stranger girl, who had left her a child.

"My middle girl, my precious middle daughter," she said, her eyes
filling with tears. "Miriam, Grace, and Eva, now I have you all about
me, my three girls. I am a happy woman, Gracie."

"Hallo!" came up the stairs; "Burden's waiting to be paid. He says it's
a dollar and a quarter. Who's got the money? There never is any money in
this house."

"Hush, Robbie!" cried Miriam, looking over the railing. "The trunks will
have to be brought right up here, of course. Set them into our room, and
after they are unpacked we'll put them into the garret. Mother, is there
any change in your pocketbook?"

"Don't trouble mamma," said Grace, waking up to the fact that there was
embarrassment in meeting this trifling charge. "I have money;" and she
opened her dainty purse for the purpose--a silvery alligator thing with
golden clasps and her monogram on it in jewels, and took out the money
needed. Her sisters and brother had a glimpse of bills and silver in
that well-filled purse.

"Jiminy!" said Robbie to James. "Did you see the money she's got? Why,
father never had as much as that at once."

Which was very true. How should a hard-working country doctor have money
to carry about when his bills were hard to collect, when anyway he never
kept books, and when his family, what with feeding and clothing and
schooling expenses, cost more every year than he could possibly earn?
Poor Doctor Wainwright! He was growing old and bent under the load of
care and expense he had to carry. While he couldn't collect his own
bills, because it is unprofessional for a doctor to dun, people did not
hesitate to dun him. All this day, as he drove from house to house, over
the weary miles, up hill and down, there was a song in his heart. He was
a sanguine man. A little bit of hope went a long way in encouraging this
good doctor, and he felt sure that better days would dawn for him now
that Grace had come home. A less hopeful temperament would have been apt
to see rocks in the way, the girl having been so differently educated
from the others, and accustomed to luxuries which they had never known.
Not so her father. He saw everything in rose-color.

As Doctor Wainwright toward evening turned his horse's head homeward he
was rudely stopped on a street corner by a red-faced, red-bearded man,
who presented him with a bill. The man grumbled out s