said, "I think I would not undertake to help the Yorkes as
well as all the other people you have upon your list. They shall not be
allowed to suffer, you may be sure; Mr. Rutherford and Mr. Livingstone
will see to that."

"Miss Milly," he answered, reproachfully, "I on'y didn't reckon up
Captain Yorke an' his folks before, 'cause they hadn't need of it. Now
they will, with all that raft of broke-up children on 'em; an' do you
think I'd go to passin' 'em over when they was so good to me? No, that
I wouldn't; I ain't never goin' to forget how Mis' Yorke nussed me, an'
made much of me, when I was sick there in her house; an' they were good
to me, too, when I was a little chap, an' got shipwrecked on to the
shore. Miss Milly, do you know,"--hesitatingly,--"I'd liever take some
out of the 'lection expenses share, than to pass over the Yorkes. I
would, really, Miss Milly."

Truly, our Milly was reaping a rich fruit of generosity, loyalty, and
earnest endeavor, from the seed of self-sacrifice and charity which she
herself had shown in faith and hope. And this, too, in ground which the
on-lookers had judged to be so hardened and stony that no harvest was
to be gathered therefrom. Oh, my Milly, sweet soul,

"Great feelings hath she of her own,
Which lesser souls may never know."

CHAPTER IV.

"FOOD FOR THE GODS."

Behold our household now settled in our city home,--our summer by the
sea, with all its many pleasures, and its measure of perplexities and
anxieties, a thing of the past; our stay at Oaklands, where papa had
enjoyed himself to his heart's content, all the more for his enforced
absence of the previous months, also over; and the different members of
the family, according to his or her individual taste, occupied with
divers plans and projects for the winter's duties and diversions.

In view of certain contingencies which were likely to arise in the
future,--father and mother said in the _far_ future; and, indeed,
although it was pleasant to contemplate them from a distant standpoint,
I was in no haste to leave my dearly beloved home,--in view of these,
and with the comfort and well-being of a certain young man before my
eyes, to say nothing of my own pride in my housekeeping capabilities, I
had chosen to enlist myself as a member of a "cooking-class." Said
cooking-class was to meet once a week, in the afternoon, at the house
of each member, in turn, when we were to try our maiden hands on the
co