een her education; if the Connecticut,
school-teacher had not realized her worth, she might have become what she
dreaded her own daughters becoming--an old maid with uncheerful views of
life. In planning their future she looked into her own heart instead of
into theirs.

The children were lovely blossomings of the seed in the hearts of both
parents; of seeds, that in them had not borne abundant fruitage.

"How did two such cranky old things ever have such happy children!" she
exclaimed one day to her husband.

"Perhaps they will become what we stopped short of being," he replied.

Graham West was something of a philosopher; rather too much of a
philosopher for his wife's peace of mind. To her sorrow she had learned
that he had no "business tact," he could not even scrape a comfortable
living off his scrubby little farm.

But I began with Linnet and fell to discoursing about her mother; it was
Linnet, as she appeared in her grayish brown dress with a knot of crimson
at her throat, running down the stairway, that suggested her mother's
thought to me.

"Linnet is almost growing up," she had said to herself as she removed her
cap for her customary afternoon nap. This afternoon nap refreshed her
countenance and kept her from looking six years older than her husband.
Mrs. West was not a worldly woman, but she did not like to look six years
older than her husband.

Linnet searched through parlor and hall, then out on the piazza, then
looked through the front yard, and, finally, having explored the garden,
found Marjorie and her friend in camp-chairs on the soft green turf under
the low hanging boughs of an apple-tree behind the house. There were two
or three books in Marjorie's lap, and Miss Prudence was turning the
leaves of Marjorie's Bible. She was answering one of Marjorie's questions
Linnet supposed and wondered if Marjorie would be satisfied with the
answer; she was not always satisfied, as the elder sister knew to her
grievance. For instance: Marjorie had said to her yesterday, with that
serious look in her eyes: "Linnet, father says when Christ was on earth
people didn't have wheat ground into fine flour as we do;--now when it is
so much nicer, why do you suppose he didn't tell them about grinding it
fine?"

"Perhaps he didn't think of it," she replied, giving the first thought
that occurred to her.

"That isn't the reason," returned Marjorie, "for he could think of
everything he wanted to."

"Then--for th