materials, for it was the night for her weekly letter to
John Holmes. Mr. Holmes did not parade his letters before the neighbors,
but none the less did he pore over them and ponder them. For whom had he
in all the world to love save little Prue and Aunt Prue?

Marjorie had closed the chemistry with a sigh, reserving astronomy for
the fresher hour of the morning. With the burden of the unlearned lesson
on her mind she opened her Bible for her usual evening reading, shrinking
from it with a distaste that she had felt several times of late and that
she had fought against and prayed about. Last evening she had compelled
herself to read an extra chapter to see if she might not read herself
into a comfortable frame of mind, and then she had closed the book with a
sigh of relief, feeling that this last task of the day was done. To-night
she fixed her eyes upon the page awhile and then dropped the book into
her lap with a weary gesture that was not unnoticed by the eyes that
never lost anything where Marjorie was concerned. It was something new to
see a fretful or fretted expression upon Marjorie's lips, but it was
certainly there to-night and Miss Prudence saw it; it might be also in
her eyes, but, if it were, the uneasy eyelids were at this moment
concealing it. "The child is very weary to-night," Miss Prudence thought,
and wondered if she were allowing her, in her ambition, to take too much
upon herself. Music, with the two hours a day practicing that she
resolutely never omitted, all the school lessons, reading and letters,
and the conscientious preparation of her lesson for Bible class, was most
assuredly sufficient to tax her mental and physical strength, and there
was the daily walk of a mile to and from school, and other things
numberless to push themselves in for her comfort and Prue's. But her step
was elastic, her color as pretty as when she worked in the kitchen at
home, and when she came in from school she was always ready for a romp
with Prue before she sat down to practice.

When summer came the garden and trips to the islands would be good for
both her children. Miss Prudence advocated the higher education for
girls, but if Marjorie's color had faded or her spirits flagged she would
have taken her out of school and set her to household tasks and to walks
and drives. Had she not taken Linnet home after her three years course
with the country color fresh in her cheeks and her step as light upon the
stair as when s