rt with it. Surely uncle and aunt couldn't have known of these
straits. Well, I'm at home now, and they need somebody to manage for
them. Uncle always said I had a business head. God helping me, I'll pull
my people out of the slough of despond."

The young girl went into the parlor, where the amber light from the
west was beginning to fall upon the old Wainwright portraits, the
candelabra with their prisms pendent, and the faded cushions and rugs.
Playing softly, as she had said, singing sweetly "Abide with me" and
"Sun of my soul," the mother was soothed into a peaceful little
half-hour of sleep, in which she dreamed that God had sent her an angel
guest, whose name was Grace.

CHAPTER IV.

TWO LITTLE SCHOOLMARMS.

"And so you are your papa's good fairy? How happy you must be! How
proud!" Amy's eyes shone as she talked to Grace, and smoothed down a
fold of the pretty white alpaca gown which set off her friend's dainty
beauty. The girls were in my mother's room at the Manse, and Mrs.
Raeburn had left them together to talk over plans, while she went to the
parlor to entertain a visitor who was engaged in getting up an autumn
_fete_ for a charitable purpose. Nothing of this kind was ever done
without mother's aid.

There were few secrets between Wishing-Brae and the Manse, and Mrs.
Wainwright had told our mother how opportunely Grace had been able to
assist her father in his straits. Great was our joy.

"You must remember, dear," said mamma, when she returned from seeing
Miss Gardner off, "that your purse is not exhaustless, though it is a
long one for a girl. Debts have a way of eating up bank accounts; and
what will you do when your money is gone if you still find that the wolf
menaces the door at Wishing-Brae?"

"That is what I want to consult you about, Aunt Dorothy." (I ought to
have said that our mother was Aunt Dorothy to the children at the Brae,
and more beloved than many a real auntie, though one only by courtesy.)
"Frances knows my ambitions," Grace went on. "I mean to be a money-maker
as well as a money-spender; and I have two strings to my bow. First, I'd
like to give interpretations."

The mother looked puzzled. "Interpretations?" she said. "Of what,
pray?--Sanscrit or Egyptian or Greek? Are you a seeress or a witch, dear
child?"

"Neither. In plain English I want to read stories and poems to my
friends and to audiences--Miss Wilkins' and Mrs. Stuart's beautiful
stories, and the poems of H