e kitchen she sprang
out. One child carried the news to another, and they huddled about her
so that she could hardly walk.

"Here's Helen, mother!"

"Well, I declare! How do you do, child! You never could come in a better
time! I had a good mind to tell Uncle Jason to bring you home, and I
guess he just scented it. Children, don't eat Helen up, this hot night,"
exclaimed their mother.

"She isn't cooked," said Tom.

"But she'll be stewed or steamed, and there's plenty for supper. We're
going to have a houseful to-morrow. Aunt Sarah and Uncle John and the
girls, and Martha's beau. She's been long enough about it, twenty-five,
if she's a day, and I'd been married six years before I was as old as
that. But she's going to do real well, though he's a widower with two
children. And Joe as usual. Though we all went down there to supper last
Sunday. Jenny's going to have things nice, I tell you! Did you bring
another frock, Helen? I've been making 'Reely wear out your old clothes.
And gracious me! how you have grown! You won't have a thing to wear in
the fall."

"I left my bundle in the wagon," as Aunt Jane made a little halt in her
talk.

"Nat, you run and get it. 'Reely, do begin settin' that table. 'Reely
isn't worth a rye straw about housework. She's Mulford all over, and
you've got to keep pushing the Mulfords along or they'd fall asleep in
their tracks. Here she's past eleven. My, the work I did when I was
eleven! Now Helen, you just put on something commoner and help round a
bit and we'll have supper."

Helen ran upstairs and changed her dress. She was glad of the cordial
welcome. But as she looked around she wondered if she had been really
content here. Did children suddenly come to some mental growth and
understanding? Whom did she take after? It was queer, but when Aunt Jane
said of one child "she was all Cummings, or all Mulford," it was the
same heredity that they discussed at Mrs. Dayton's.

Where did she get her finer instincts from? For she had them long ago,
only she was afraid to bring them out and have them laughed at. Her
little white covered cot at Mrs. Dayton's looked so sweet and wholesome,
everything was put in a closet, the table held a few books, a
work-basket, often a bowl of flowers. This was all littered up, the
candlestick decorated with piles of grease, the faded and worn bed quilt
put on awry, shoes here and there, garments hung anywhere, and Fan's
dolls and stuff of all kinds in the co