Kitabı oku: «Nine Little Goslings», sayfa 4

"Yes, – a good way."

Mell nodded her head in a satisfied manner. "She'll not often come there," she thought. "She" meant Mrs. Davis.

Mrs. Davis was unusually pleasant for the few remaining days which Mell spent at home. I do not think she had ever meant to treat Mell unkindly, but she had a hot temper, and the care of five unruly children is a good deal for one woman to undertake, without counting in a little step-daughter with a head stuffed with fairy stories. She washed and ironed, mended and packed for Mell as kindly as possible, and did not say one cross word, not even when her husband brought the coral necklace from the big chest and gave it to Mell for her very own. "The child had a right to her mother's necklace," he said. All was peaceful and serene, and when Mell said good-by she surprised herself by feeling quite sorry to go, and kissed Gabella Sarah's small face with tears in her eyes.

Grandmother was just such a dear old woman as one reads about in books. Her cheeks were all criss-crossed with little wrinkles, which made her look as if she were always smiling. Her forehead was smooth, her eyes kind and blue. She was small, thin, and wiry. Her laugh was as fresh as a young woman's. Mell loved her at once, and was sure that she should be happy to live with her and be her little girl.

"Why, Bethuel, you've brought me a real good helper," said Grandmother, as Mell ran to and fro, setting the tea-table, cutting bread, and learning where things were kept. "I shall sit like a lady and do nothing but rock in my cheer now that I've got Mell." Mell heard the kind words, and sprang about more busily than ever. It was a new thing to be praised.

Before Captain Davis went next day he walked over to Barnstable, and came back with a parcel in his hand. The parcel was for Mell. It contained the Fairy Tales, – all new and complete, bound in beautiful red covers.

"You shall read them aloud to me in the evenings," said Grandmother.

That night, if anybody had peeped through the window of Grandmother's little house he would have seen a pleasant sight. The kitchen was all in order; the lamp burned clear; Grandmother sat in her rocking-chair with a smile on her kind old face, while Mell, at her feet on a little stool, opened the Fairy Tales, and prepared to read. "Once upon a time there lived a beautiful Princess," she began; – then a sudden sense of the delightfulness of all this overcame her. She dropped the book into her lap, clasped her hands tight, and said, half to herself, half to Grandmother, "Isn't it nice?"

MISTRESS MARY

IT was the first of May; but May was in an April mood, – half cloudy, half shiny, – and belied her name. Sprinkles of silvery rain dotted the way-side dust; flashes of sun caught the drops as they fell, and turned each into a tiny mirror fit for fairy faces. The trees were raining too, showers of willow-catkins and cherry-bud calyxes, which fell noiselessly and strewed the ground. The children kicked the soft brown drifts aside with their feet as they walked along.

The doors of the Methodist meeting-house at Valley Hill stood open, and crowds of men and women and children were going into them. It was not Sunday which called the people together: it was the annual Conference meeting; and all the country round was there to hear the reports and learn where the ministers were to be sent for the next two years. Methodist clergymen, you know, are not "called" by the people of the parish, as other clergymen are. They go where the church sends them, and every second year they are all changed to other parishes. This, it is thought, keeps the people and pastors fresh and interested in each other. But I don't know. Human beings, as well as vegetables, have a trick of putting down roots; and even a cabbage or a potato would resent such transplanting, and would refuse to thrive.

Sometimes, when a parish has become attached to its minister, it will plead to have him stay longer. Now and then this request is granted; but, as a rule, the minister has to go. And it is a hard rule for his wife and children, who have to go too.

The Valley Hill people "thought a heap" of their minister, Mr. Forcythe, and had begged hard that he might stay with them for another term. Everybody belonging to the church had come to the meeting feeling anxious, and yet pretty certain that the answer would be favorable. All over the building, people were whispering about the matter, and heads were nodding and bowing. The bonnets on these heads were curiously alike. Mrs. Perry, the village milliner, never had more than one pattern hat. "That is what is worn," she said; and nobody disputed the fact, which saved Mrs. Perry trouble. The Valley Hill people liked it just as well, and didn't mind the lack of variety. This year Mrs. Perry had announced yellow to be the fashion, so nine out of ten of the hats present were trimmed with yellow ribbon crossed in just the same way over a yellow straw crown; and the church looked like a bed of sisterly tulips nodding and bowing in the wind.

Bishop Judson was the person to read the announcements. He was a nice old man, kind at heart, though formal in manner, and anxious eyes were fixed on him as he got up with a paper in his hand. That important little paper held comfort or discomfort for ever so many people. Every one bent forward to listen. It was so still all over the church that you might have heard a pin drop. The Bishop began with a little speech about the virtues of patience and contentment, and how important it was that everybody should be quite satisfied whatever happened to them. Then he opened the paper.

"Brother Johnson, Middlebury," he read. Middlebury was a favorite parish, so Brother Johnson looked pleased, and Sister Johnson was congratulated by the friends who sat near her. "Brother Woodward, Little Falls; Brother Ashe, Plunxet; Brother Allen, Claxton Corners." And so on. Some faces grew bright, some sad, as the reading proceeded. At last "Brother Forcythe, Redding; Brother Martin, Valley Hill," was announced. A quiver of disappointment went over the church, and a little girl sitting in the gallery began to cry.

"My dear, my dear," whispered her mother, much distressed at her sobs and gulps. People looked up from below; but Mary could not stop. She took her mother's handkerchief and held it tight over her mouth; but the sobs would come. Her heart was half-broken at the idea of leaving Valley Hill and going to that horrid Redding, where nobody wanted to go.

Old Mrs. Clapp, from behind, reached over and gave her a bunch of fennel. But the fennel only made Mary cry harder. In Redding, she was sure, would be no kind Mrs. Clapp, no "meeting-house seed;" and her sobs grew thicker at the thought.

"I observe that your little daughter seems to be distressed," said Bishop Judson, as Mrs. Forcythe led the sobbing Mary down from the gallery at the end of service. "Children of her age form strong attachments to places, I am aware. But it is well to break them before they become unduly strong. Here we have no continuing city, you know."

"Yes," said poor Mrs. Forcythe, with a meek sigh. She had been married fourteen years, and this was her seventh move.

"Redding – hum – is a desirable place in some respects," went on the Bishop. "There is a great work to do there, – a great work. It requires a man of Brother Forcythe's energy to meet it. Mistress Mary here will doubtless find consolation in the thought that her father's sphere of usefulness is – h'm – enlarged."

"But we shan't have any garden," faltered Mary, "Tilly Brooks, who was there before, says it isn't a bit nice. She never saw a flower all the time she was there, she said. I'd just planted my bed in the garden here. Mrs. Clapp gave me six pansies, and it was going to be so pretty. Now I've got to – leave – 'em." Her voice died away into sobs.

"Tut, tut!" said the Bishop. "The customs of a church cannot be set aside to accommodate a child's flower-bed. You'll find other things to please you in Redding, Mistress Mary. Come, come, dry your eyes. Your father's daughter should not set an example like this."

"No, sir," gulped Mary, mortified at this reproof from the Bishop, who was an important person, and much looked up to. She did her best to stop crying, but it was hard work. When they reached home, the sight of the pansies perking their yellow and purple faces up to meet her, renewed her grief. There was her mignonette seed not yet sprouted. If she had known that they were going away, she would not have planted any. There, worst of all, was the corner where she had planned such a nice surprise for her mother, – "A. F." in green parsley letters. A. F. stood for Anne Forcythe. Now, mother would never see the letters or know any thing about it. Oh dear, oh dear!

Mrs. Forcythe's own disappointment was great, for they had all made sure that they should stay. But, like a true mother, she put her share of the grief aside, and thought only of comforting Mary.

"Don't feel so badly, dear," she said. "Recollect, you'll have Papa still, and me and Frank and little Peter. We'll manage to be happy somehow. Redding isn't half so disagreeable as you think."

"Yes, it is. Tilly said so. I was going to have radishes and a rose-bush," replied Mary tearfully. "There's a robin just building in the elm-tree now. There won't be any trees in Redding; only horrid hard cobble-stones."

"We must hope for the best," said Mrs. Forcythe, who did not enjoy the idea of the cobble-stones any more than Mary did.

"Only ten days more at Valley Hill," was the first thought that came into Mary's mind the next morning. She went downstairs cross and out of spirits. Her mother was laying sheets and table-cloths in a trunk. The books were gone from the little book-shelf; every thing had already begun to look unsettled and uncomfortable.

"I shall depend on you to take care of little Peter," said Mrs. Forcythe. "We shall all have to work hard if we are to get off next Monday week."

Mary gave an impatient shrug with her shoulders. She loved little Peter, but it seemed an injury just then to have to take care of him. All the time that her mother was sorting, counting, and arranging where things should go, she sat in the window sullen and unhappy, looking out at the pansy-bed. Peter grew tired of a companion who did nothing to amuse him, and began to sprawl and scramble upstairs.

"O baby, come back!" cried Mary, and, I am sorry to say, gave him a shake. Peter cried, and that brought poor weary Mrs. Forcythe downstairs.

"Can't you manage to make him happy?" she said. Mary only pouted.

All that day and the next and the next it was the same. Mrs. Forcythe was busy every moment. There were a thousand things to do, another thousand to remember. People kept coming in to say good-by. Peter wandered out on the door-steps when Mary's back was turned, took cold, and was threatened with croup. Mrs. Forcythe was half sick herself from worry and fatigue. And all this time Mary, instead of helping, was one of her mother's chief anxieties. She fretted and complained continually. Every thing went wrong. Each article put into the boxes cost her a flood of tears. Each friend who dropped in, renewed the sense of loss. She scarcely noticed her mother's pale face at all. All the brightness and busy-ness in her was changed for selfish lamentations, and still the burden of her complaint was, "I shan't have any flowers in Redding. My garden, oh, my garden."

"I don't know what's come to her," said poor Mrs. Forcythe. "She's not like the same child at all." And old Mrs. Clapp, who had been very fond of Mary, declared that she never knew a girl so altered.

"She's the most contrary piece you ever saw," she said to her daughter. "I could have given her a right-down good slap just now for the way she spoke to her mother. It's all her fault that the baby took cold. She don't lift a hand to help, and I expect as sure as Fate that we'll have Mrs. Forcythe sick before we get through. I wouldn't have believed that such a likely girl as Mary Forcythe could act so."

Poor "contrary" Mary! She was very unhappy. The fatal last morning came. All the boxes were packed. The drays, laden with furniture and beds, stood at the gate. Mrs. Clapp, and Mrs. Elder, the class-leader, were going over the house collecting last things and doing last jobs. Mary wandered out alone into the garden for a farewell look at her pets.

"Good-by, pansies," she said, bending over them. There were only five in the bed now, for Mary had taken up one and packed it in paper to carry with her. A big tear hopped down her nose and splashed into the middle of the yellow pansy, her favorite of all. It turned up its bright kitten-face just the same. None of them minded Mary's going away. Flowers are sometimes so unkind to people.

"Good-by, rose-bush," proceeded Mary, turning from the pansy-bed. "Good-by, honey-suckle. Good-by, peony. Good-by, matter-i-mony." This sounds funny, but Mary only meant by it a vine with a small purple flower which grew over the back-door. "Good-by, lilac," she went on. "Good-by, grass plot." This brought her to the gate. The wagon stood waiting to carry them to the railroad, three miles away. Mrs. Forcythe, with the baby in her arms, was just getting in. "Hurry, Mary," called her father. Slowly she opened the gate, slowly shut it. Her father helped her over the wheel. She sat down beside Frank. Mrs. Clapp waved her handkerchief, then put it to her eyes. Mary took a long look at the pretty garden just budding with spring, and burst into tears. Mr. Forcythe chirruped to the horse; they were off, – and that was their good-by to Valley Hill.

Redding was certainly very different. It was an old-fashioned town with narrow streets, which smelt of fish. Most of the people were sailors, or had something to do with ships. There were several nice churches, and outside the town a few handsome houses, but there were a great many poor people in the place and not many rich ones.

In the very narrowest of all the streets stood the parsonage; a little brick house with a paved yard behind, just wide enough for clothes-lines. When the wash was hung out there was not an inch to spare on either side. Mary gave up all hope as soon as she saw it. There was not room even for one pansy. The windows looked out on chimneys and roofs and other backyards, with lines of wet clothes flapping in the sun. Not a tree was to be seen. Any one might be excused for thinking it doleful; and Mary, having made up her mind beforehand to dislike it, found it easy to keep her resolution.

There was no possibility of getting things to rights that night; though several people came in to help, and a comfortable supper was ready spread for the travellers on their arrival. Mrs. Forcythe was cheered by this kindness, but Mary could not be cheerful. She had to sleep upon a mattress laid on the floor. At another time this would have been fun, but now it did not seem funny at all; it was only part and parcel of the misery of coming to live in Redding. She cried herself to sleep, and came down in the morning with swollen eyelids and a disposition to make the very worst of things, – easy enough for any girl to do if she sets about it.

She scarcely thanked her father when he went out and bought a red pot for the unlucky pansy, which, after its travels and its night in brown paper, looked as disconsolate as Mary herself. "I know it'll die right away," she muttered as she set it on the window-sill. "Oh, dear, there's mother calling. What does she want?"

"Mary, dear," said Mrs. Forcythe when she went down, "where have you been? I want you to put away the dishes for me."

"I'm so tired," objected Mary crossly.

"Don't you think that mother must be tired too?" asked her father gravely.

Mary blushed and began to place the cups and plates on the cupboard shelves. Her slow movements attracted her father's attention.

"What's the matter?" he said. "At Valley Hill you were as brisk as a bee, always wanting to help in every thing. Here you seem unwilling to move. How is it?"

"I – don't – like – Redding," broke out Mary in a burst of petulance.

"You haven't seen it yet."

"Yes, I have, Papa. I've seen it as much as I want to. It's horrid!"

"I never knew her to behave so before," said Mr. Forcythe in a perplexed tone, as Mary, having unpacked the dishes, sobbed her way upstairs.

"She'll brighten when we are settled," replied Mrs. Forcythe, indulgent as mothers are, and ready to hope the best of her child. "Oh, dear! there's the baby waked up. Would you call Mary to go to him?"

So it went on all that week. Mr. and Mrs. Forcythe were very patient with Mary, hoping always that this evil mood would pass, and their bright, helpful little daughter come back to them again. She never refused to do any thing that was asked of her; but you know the difference between willing and unwilling service: Mary just did the tasks set her, no more, and as soon as they were finished fled to her own room to fret and cry. Her father took her out to walk and showed her the new church, but Mary thought the church ugly, and the outside view of Redding as unpleasant as the inside one. Dull streets, small houses everywhere; no gardens, except now and then a single bed, edged with a row of stiff cockle-shells by way of fence, and planted with pert sweet-williams or crown imperials. These Mary thought were worse than no flowers at all. Every thing smelt of fish. The very sea was made ugly by warehouses and shabby wharves. The people they met were strangers; and, altogether, the effect of Mary's walk was to send her back more homesick than ever for Valley Hill.

By Friday night the little parsonage was in order. Mrs. Forcythe was a capital manager. She planned and contrived, turned and twisted and made things comfortable in a surprising way. But she overtired herself greatly in doing this, and on Saturday morning Mary was waked by her father calling from below that mother was very ill, and she must come down at once and stay with her while he went for a doctor.

"Oh, dear!" sighed Mary, as she hurried on her clothes. "Now mother is sick. It's all this hateful Redding. She never was sick when we lived in the country."

But the hard mood melted the moment she saw her mother's pale face and feeble smile.

"I hope I'm not going to be very ill," said Mrs. Forcythe; "probably it's only that I have tired myself out. You'll have to be 'Mamma' for a day or two, Mary dear. Make Papa as comfortable as you can. See that Frank has his lunch put up for school, and don't let Peter take cold. Oh, dear! – my head aches so hard that I can't talk. I know you'll do your best Mary, won't you?"

Guess how Mary felt at this appeal! All her better nature came back in a moment. She saw how wrong she had been in nursing her selfish griefs, and letting this dear mother over-work herself. "O mother, I will, indeed I will!" she cried, kissing the pale face; and, only waiting to draw the blind so that the sun should not shine in, she flew downstairs, eager to do all she could to make up for past ill-conduct.

The Doctor came. He said Mrs. Forcythe was threatened with fever, and must be kept very quiet for several days. Mary had never in her life worked so hard as she did that Saturday. There was breakfast, dinner, supper to get, dishes to wash, water to heat, the fire to tend, rooms to dust, beds to make, the baby to keep out of mischief. She was very tired by night, but her heart felt lighter than it had for many days past. Do you wonder at this? I can tell you the reason. Mary's troubles were selfish troubles, and the moment she forgot herself in thinking of somebody else, they became small and began to creep away.

"Pitty, pitty!" said little Peter, as he heard her singing over her dish-washing. Mary caught him up and gave him a hearty kiss, – a real Valley Hill kiss, such as she had given no one since they came to Redding.

"Mary is doing famously," Mr. Forcythe told his wife that night. "She has a first-rate head on her shoulders for a girl of her age." Mary heard him, and was pleased. She liked – we all like – to be counted useful and valuable. The bit of praise sent her back to her work with redoubled zeal.

Next morning Mrs. Forcythe was a little better. Her head ached less; she sat up on her pillows and drank a cup of tea. Mary was smoothing her mother's hair with soft pats of the brush, when suddenly the church bells began to ring. She had never heard such sounds before. The bell at Valley Hill was cracked, and went tang – tang – tang, as if the meeting-house were an old cow walking slowly about. These bells had a dozen different voices, – some deep and solemn, others bright and clear, but all beautiful; and across their pealing a soft, delicious chime from the tower of the Episcopal church went to and fro, and wove itself in and out like a thread of silver embroidery. Mary dropped the brush, and clasped her hands tight. It was like listening to a song of which she could not hear enough. When the last tinkle of the chime died away, she unclasped her hands, and, turning from the window, cried, "O mother! wasn't that lovely? There is one pleasant thing in Redding, after all!"

I do not think matters ever seemed so hard again after that morning when Mary made friends with the church bells. It was the beginning of a better understanding between her and her new home; and there is a great deal in beginnings, even though they may work slowly toward their ends.

By the close of the week Mrs. Forcythe was downstairs again, weak and pale, but able to sit in her chair and direct things, which Mary felt to be a great comfort. The parishioners began to call. There were no rich people among them; but it was a hard-working, active parish, and did a great deal for its means. The Sunday-school was large and flourishing; there was a missionary association, a home missionary association, a mite society, and a sewing circle, which met every week to make clothes for the poor and partake of tea, soda biscuit, and six sorts of cake. Beside these, a new project had just been started, "The Seamen's Daughters' Industrial Society;" or, in other words, a sewing-school for little girls whose fathers were sailors. There were plenty of such little girls in Redding.

"Your daughter will join, of course," said Mrs. Wallis, when she came to call on her minister's wife. "It's important that the pastor's family should take a part in every good work." Mrs. Wallis was the most energetic woman of the congregation, – at the head of every thing.

"I'm afraid Mary's sewing is not good enough," replied Mrs. Forcythe. "She isn't very skilful with her needle yet."

"Oh! she knows enough to teach those ignorant little creatures. Half of them are foreigners, and never touch a needle in their homes. It's every thing to give them some ideas beyond their own shiftless ways."

"Would you like to try, Mary?" asked her mother.

"I – don't – know," replied Mary, afraid to refuse, because Mrs. Wallis looked so sharp and decided.

"Very well, then I'll call for you on Saturday, at half-past ten," went on Mrs. Wallis, quite regardless of Mary's hesitating tone. "I'm glad you'll come. It would never do not to have some of the minister's family. Saturday morning, at half-past ten! Good-by, Mrs. Forcythe. Don't get up; you look peaked still. To-morrow is baking day, and I shall send you a green-currant pie. Perhaps that'll do you good." With these words she departed.

"Must I really teach in that school?" asked Mary dolefully.

"I think you'd better. The people expect it, and it will be a good thing for you to practise sewing a little," replied her mother. "I daresay it will be pleasanter than you think."

"It seems so funny that I should be set to teach any one to sew," said Mary, bursting into a laugh. "Don't you recollect how Mrs. Clapp used to scold me, and say I 'gobbled' my darns?"

"You mustn't 'gobble' before the seamen's daughters," said Mrs. Forcythe, smiling. "It will be a capital lesson for you to try to teach what you haven't quite learned yourself."

Punctual as the clock Mrs. Wallis appeared on Saturday, and bore the unwilling Mary away to the sewing-school. Mrs. Forcythe watched them from the window. She couldn't help laughing, their movements were so comically different, – Mrs. Wallis was so brisk and decided, while Mary lagged behind, dragging one slow foot after the other as if each moment she longed to stop and dared not. Very different was her movement, however, two hours later, when she returned. She came with a kind of burst, her eyes bright with excitement, and her cheeks pinker than they had been since she left Valley Hill.

"O mother, it is so nice! Ever so many children were there, – thirty at least; and Mrs. Wallis said I might choose any five I liked to be my class. First, I chose the dearest little Irish girl. Her name is Norah, and she's just as pretty as she can be, only her face was dreadfully dirty, and her clothes all rags. Then her little sister Kathleen cried to come; so I took her too. Then I chose a cunning little German tot named Gretchen. She has yellow hair, braided in tight little tails down her back, and is a good deal cleaner than the rest, but not very clean, you know; and she hadn't any shoes at all. Then Mrs. Wallis brought up the funniest little French girl, with a name I can't pronounce. I'm going to call her Amy. And the last of all is an American, real pretty. Her name is Rachel Gray. Her father is gone on a whaling voyage, and won't be back for three years. Don't they sound nice, mother? I think I shall like teaching them so much!"

"Do they know any thing about sewing?" asked Mrs. Forcythe.

"Not a thing. They made dreadful stitches. Kathleen cried because the needle pricked her, and Rachel wanted to wear the thimble on the wrong finger. Amy did the best. When they went away they all wanted to kiss me, and Norah said she guessed I was the best teacher in the school. Wasn't that cunning? Mrs. Wallis is real kind. She brought ever so much gingerbread, and gave each of the children a piece."

"I'm glad it begins so well – "

"Yes. There's just one thing, though. The children's faces! You can't think how dirty they are. I should like to give them a good scrub all round."

"Well, why don't you?"

"How can I? There isn't any wash-bowl down at the school-room."

"If you liked you might have them all come here at ten o'clock, and walk down with you. Then you could take them up to your room, wash their faces and hands, and brush their hair smooth before you start. I really think you would enjoy your teaching more if the scholars were clean."

"May I really do that?"

"Yes. I'll buy you a fresh cake of soap and a brush, and you can take two clean towels from the drawer every Saturday morning. Make it a rule, but be very gentle and pleasant about it or the children may refuse."

"O mother, what a good plan! Thank you so much," said Mary with sparkling eyes. "Now I shall have real comfort with them."

There was great excitement in the sewing-class when they were told that in future they were to go to "Teacher's" house every Saturday, and walk down to school with her. They were a droll little procession enough when they appeared the next week at the appointed time. Norah's toes were out of her shoes. Her tangled curls were as rough as a bird's-nest, and the hat on top of them looked as if it had sailed across every mud-puddle in town. Little Kathleen's scanty garments were rather rags than clothes. And Gretchen, tidiest of all, had smears of sausage on her rosy face, and did not seem to have been brought into contact with soap and water for weeks.

Mary led them up into her own room, which, plain as it was, looked like a palace to the little ones after the dirt and discomfort of their crowded homes. There were the nice clean towels, the new hair-brush, and the big cake of honey-soap, mother's contributions to the undertaking. The washing was quite a frolic. Norah cried a little at having her hair pulled, but Mary was gentle and pleasant, and made the affair so amusing that the children thought it pleasant to be clean, instead of disliking it. She rewarded their patience by a kiss all round. Kathleen threw her arms about Mary's neck and gave her a great hug. "You're iver so nice," she said, and Mary kissed her again.

So every Saturday from that time forward, Mary went to school followed by a crowd of clean little faces, which looked all the brighter and happier for their cleanliness. She was proud of her class, but their ragged clothes distressed her greatly.

"It is such a pity," she told her mother. "They are so pretty, and they look like beggars."

Mrs. Forcythe had only been waiting for this. She was not a woman to give much advice, even to her own child. "Drop in a seed and let it grow," was her motto.

"There's that old gingham of yours," she suggested. "You could spare that for one of them, if there were anybody to make it over."

"I'll make it!" cried Mary, "only – " her, face falling, "I don't know how to cut dresses."

"I'll cut it for you if you like," said Mrs. Forcythe quietly.

"Will you, mother dear? How splendid. I'll make it for Norah. She's the raggedest of all."

The gingham was measured, and proved enough to make frocks for Norah and Kathleen too. Mary had double work to undertake, but her heart was in her fingers, and they flew fast. It took every spare moment for a fortnight to make the frocks, but when they were done and tried on to the delighted children, they looked so nicely that Mary was rewarded for her trouble and for the many needle-pricks in her forefinger.

"Only it's such a pity about the others," she told her mother. "They'll think I'm partial, and I'm not, though I do love Norah a little bit the best, she's so affectionate. I wish we were rich. Then I could buy frocks for them all."

"If you were rich, perhaps you wouldn't care about it," said her mother. "A little here and a little there, a stitch, a kind word, a small self-denial, these are in the power of all of us, and in course of time they mount up and make a great deal. And, Mary dear, I've always found if you once start in a path and are determined to keep on, somebody's sure to come along and lend a helping hand, when you think you have got to the end of every thing, and must stop or turn back."