re! You mustn't follow where you haven't any right to go. If
there'd been anything to say or do, I'd a' done it."

"He's mine! He's mine!" stormed Rebecca. "At least he's yours and mine!"

"He's his father's first of all," faltered Mrs. Cobb; "don't let's
forget that; and we'd ought to be glad and grateful that John Winslow's
come to his senses an' remembers he's brought a child into the world and
ought to take care of it. Our loss is his gain and it may make a man of
him. Come in, and we'll put things away all neat before your Uncle Jerry
gets home."

Rebecca sank in a pitiful little heap on Mrs. Cobb's bedroom floor
and sobbed her heart out. "Oh, Aunt Sarah, where shall we get another
Jack-o'-lantern, and how shall I break it to Emma Jane? What if his
father doesn't love him, and what if he forgets to strain the milk or
lets him go without his nap? That's the worst of babies that aren't
private--you have to part with them sooner or later!"

"Sometimes you have to part with your own, too," said Mrs. Cobb sadly;
and though there were lines of sadness in her face there was neither
rebellion nor repining, as she folded up the sides of the turn-up
bedstead preparatory to banishing it a second time to the attic. "I
shall miss Sarah Ellen now more'n ever. Still, Rebecca, we mustn't feel
to complain. It's the Lord that giveth and the Lord that taketh away:
Blessed be the name of the Lord."

Second Chronicle. DAUGHTERS OF ZION

I

Abijah Flagg was driving over to Wareham on an errand for old Squire
Winship, whose general chore-boy and farmer's assistant he had been for
some years.

He passed Emma Jane Perkins's house slowly, as he always did. She was
only a little girl of thirteen and he a boy of fifteen or sixteen, but
somehow, for no particular reason, he liked to see the sun shine on her
thick braids of reddish-brown hair. He admired her china-blue eyes too,
and her amiable, friendly expression. He was quite alone in the world,
and he always thought that if he had anybody belonging to him he would
rather have a sister like Emma Jane Perkins than anything else within
the power of Providence to bestow. When she herself suggested this
relationship a few years later he cast it aside with scorn, having
changed his mind in the interval--but that story belongs to another time
and place.

Emma Jane was not to be seen in garden, field, or at the window, and
Abijah turned his gaze to the large brick house that came