"Oh, auntie!" she cried, at her waking, presently, "was ever anything so perfect? To think of being let out so! Right from a regular, proper parlor, into the woods!"

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'Do you mean to go up stairs?" inquired Miss Henderson, with a vague amaze in her look that seemed to question whether her niece had not possibly been "let out" from her "regular and proper" wits!

Whereupon Faith scrambled up from her seat upon the sill, and hurried off to investigate and explore above.

Miss Henderson closed the door, pushed the bolt, and followed quietly after.

It was a funny little pantomime that Faith enacted then, for the further bewilderment of the staid old lady.

Darting from one chamber to another, with an inexplicable look of business and consideration in her face, that contrasted comically with her quick movements and her general air of glee, she would take her stand in the middle of each one in turn, and wheeling round to get a swift panoramic view of outlook and capabilities, would end by a succession of mysterious and apparently satisfied little nods, as if at each pause some point of plan or arrangement had settled itself in her mind.

"Aunt Faith!" cried she, suddenly, as she came out upon the landing when she had peeped into the last corner, and found Miss Henderson on the point of making her descent, "what sort of a thing do you think it would be for us to come here and live?"

Aunt Faith sat down now as suddenly, in her turn, on the stair-head. Recovering, so, from her momentary and utter astonishment, and taking in, during that instant of repose, the full drift of the question propounded, she rose from her involuntarily assumed position, and continued her

way down,

answering, without so much as turning her head, "It would be just the most sensible thing that Henderson Gartney ever did in his life!"

What made Faithie a bit sober, all at once, when the key was turned, and they passed on, out under the elms, into the lane again?

Did you ever project a very wise and important scheme, that involved a little self-sacrifice, which, by a determined looking at the bright side of the subject, you had managed tolerably to ignore; and then, by the instant and unhesitating acquiescence of some one to whose judgment you submitted it, find yourself suddenly wheeled about in your own mind to the stand-point whence you discerned only the difficulty again?

"There's one thing, Aunt Faith," said she, as they slowly walked up the field-path; "I could n't go to school any more."

Faith had discontinued her regular attendance since the recommencement for the year, but had gone in for a few hours on French and German days."

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There's another thing," said Aunt Faith. "I don't believe your father can afford to send you any more. You're eighteen, aint you?"

"Time for you to leave off school. Bring your books and things along with you. You'll have chance enough to study."

Faith had n't thought much of herself before. But when she found her aunt did n't apparently think of her at all, she began to realize keenly all that she must silently give

up.

"But it's a good deal of help, auntie, to study with

out here. I don't mean for the sake of parties, and going about. But for the improvement of it. I should n't like to be shut out from cultivated people."

"Faith Gartney!" exclaimed Miss Henderson, facing about in the narrow footway, "don't you go to being fine and transcendental! If there's one word I despise more than another, in the way folks use it now-a-days,

it's • Culture!' As if God did n't know how to make souls grow! You just take root where He puts you, and go to work, and live! He'll take care of the cultivating! If He means you to turn out a rose, or an oak-tree, you'll come to it. And pig-weed's pig-weed, no matter where it starts up!"

"Aunt Faith!" replied the child, humbly and earnestly, "I believe that's true! And I believe I want the country to grow in! But the thing will be," she added, a little doubtfully, "to persuade father."

"Don't he want to come, then? Whose plan is it, pray? asked Miss Henderson, stopping short again, just as she had resumed her walk, in a fresh surprise.

"Nobody's but mine, yet, auntie! I haven't asked him, but I thought I'd come and look."

Miss Henderson took her by the arm, and looked steadfastly in her dark, earnest eyes.

"You're something, sure enough!" said she, with a sharp tenderness.

Faith did n't know precisely what she meant, except that she seemed to mean approval. And at the one word of appreciation, all difficulty and self-sacrifice vanished out of her sight, and everything brightened to her thought, again, till her thought brightened out into a smile.

"What a sky-full of lovely white clouds!" she said,. looking up to the pure, fleecy folds that were flitting over the blue. "We can't see that in Mishaumok!"

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"She's just heavenly!" said Glory to herself, standing at the back door, and gazing with a rapturous admiration at Faith's upturned face. And the dinner's all ready, and I'm thankful, and more, that the custard 's baked so beautiful!"

CHAPTER XIII.

DEVELOPMENT.

"Sits the wind in that corner?"

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

"For courage mounteth with occasion."

KING JOHN.

THE lassitude that comes with spring had told upon Mr. Gartney. He had dyspepsia, too; and now and then came home early from the counting-room with a headache that sent him to his bed. Dr. Gracie dropped in, friendly-wise, of an evening, said little that was strictly professional, -but held his hand a second longer, perhaps, than he would have done for a mere greeting, and looked rather scrutinizingly at him when Mr. Gartney's eyes were turned another way. Frequently he made some slight suggestion of a journey, or other summer change.

“You must urge it, if you can, Mrs. Gartney," he said, privately, to the wife. "I don't quite like his looks. Get him away from business, at almost any sacrifice," he came to add, at last.

"At every sacrifice?" asked Mrs. Gartney, anxious and perplexed. "Business is nearly all, you know."

"Life is more,

gravely.

reason is more," answered the doctor,