The sight was a magnificent one; the sound like an ocean-beat of praise. Lessing seized David's arm.

"That is the power!" he exclaimed. "Not only does it uplift all these thousands you see here, but millions more, all over this globe. It is nearly two thousand years since this Jesus was known among men. Could he transform lives to-night, as mine has been transformed, if his power were a delusion? What has brought them all these miles, if not this same power? Look at the class of people who have been duped, as you call it." He pointed to the platform. "Bishops, college presidents, editors, men of marked ability and with world-wide reputation for worth and scholarship."

At the close of the hymn some one moved over, and made room for David on one of the benches. Lessing pushed farther to the front. David listened to all that was said with a sort of pitying tolerance, until the sermon began. The bishop's opening words caught his attention, and echoed in his memory for months afterward.

"Paul knew Christ as he had studied him, and as he appeared to him when he did not believe in him—when he despised him. Then he also knew Christ after his surrender to him; after Christ had entered into his life, and changed the character of his being; after new meanings of life and destiny filled his horizon, after the Divine tenderness filled to completeness his nature; then was he in possession of a knowledge of Christ, of an experience of his presence and of his love that was a benediction to him, and has through the centuries since that hour been a blessing to men wherever the gospel has been preached.

"It is such a man speaking in this text. A man with a singularly strong mind, well disciplined, with great will-power; a man with a great ancestry; a man with as mighty a soul as ever tabernacled in flesh and blood. He proclaimed everywhere that, if need be, he was ready to die for the principles out of which had come to him a new life, and which had brought to his heart experiences so rich and so overwhelming in happiness, that he was led to do and undertake what he knew would lead at the last to a martyr's death and crown. Why? Hear him: 'For the love of Christ constraineth us.'"

There was a testimony service following the sermon. As David watched the hundreds rising to declare their faith, he wondered why they should thus voluntarily come forward as witnesses. Then the text seemed to repeat itself in answer, "For the love of Christ constraineth us!"

He dreamed of Lessing and Paul all night. He was glad when the conference was at an end; when the decorations were taken down from the streets, and the last car-load of irrepressible enthusiasts went singing out of the city.

Albert Herrick went to the seashore that week. David proposed taking Marta home with him; but her objections were so heartily re-enforced by the whole family that he quietly dropped the subject, and went back to Rabbi Barthold alone.

CHAPTER V.

For a week since her return the weather had been intensely warm. It made Jack irritable, and sapped her own strength.

There came a day when everything went wrong. She had practiced her shorthand exercises all morning, until her head ached almost beyond endurance. The grocer presented a bill much larger than she had expected. While he was receipting it, a boy came to collect for the gas, and there were only two dimes left in her purse. Then Jack upset a little cut-glass vase that was standing on the table beside him. It was broken beyond repair, and the water ruined the handsome binding of a borrowed book that would have to be replaced.

About noon Dr. Trent called to see Jack. He had brought a new kind of brace that he wanted tried.

"It will help him amazingly," he said, "but it is very expensive."

Bethany's heart sank. She thought of the pipes that had sprung a leak that morning, of the broken pump, and the empty flour-barrel. She could not see where all the money they needed was to come from.

"It's too small," said the doctor, after a careful trial of the brace. "The size larger will be just the thing. I will bring it in the morning."

He wiped his forehead wearily as he stopped on the threshold.

"A storm must be brewing," he remarked. "It is so oppressively sultry."

It was not many hours before his prediction was verified by a sudden windstorm that came up with terrific force. The trees in the avenue were lashed violently back and forth until they almost swept the earth. Huge limbs were twisted completely off, and many were left broken and hanging. It was followed by hail and a sudden change of temperature, that suggested winter. The roses were all beaten off the bushes, their pink petals scattered over the soaked grass. The porch was covered with broken twigs and wet leaves.

As night dropped down, the trees bordering the avenue waved their green, dripping boughs shiveringly towards the house.

"How can it be so cold and dreary in July?" inquired Jack. "Let's have a fire in the library and eat supper there to-night."

Bethany shivered. It had been the judge's favorite room in the winter, on account of its large fireplace, with its queer, old-fashioned tiling. She rarely went in there except to dust the books or throw herself in the big arm-chair to cry over the perplexities that he had always shielded her from so carefully. But Jack insisted, and presently the flames went leaping up the throat of the wide chimney, filling the room with comfort and the cheer of genial companionship.

"Look!" cried Jack, pointing through the window to the bright reflection of the fire in the garden outside. "Don't you remember what you read me in 'Snowbound?'

As usual, Jack's wishes prevailed. Afterward, when Bethany had tucked him snugly in bed, and was sitting alone by the fire, listening to the queer noises in the chimney, she wished they had not dwelt so long on such a grewsome subject. She leaned back in her father's great arm-chair, with her little slippered feet on the brass fender, and her soft hair pressed against the velvet cushions. Her white hands were clasped loosely in her lap; small, helpless looking hands, little fitted to cope with the burdens and responsibilities laid upon her.

The judge had never even permitted her to open a door for herself when he had been near enough to do it for her. But his love had made him short-sighted. In shielding her so carefully, he did not see that he was only making her more keenly sensitive to later troubles that must come when he was no longer with her. Every one was surprised at the course she determined upon.

"I supposed, of course," said Mrs. Marion, "that you would try to teach drawing or watercolors, or something. You have spent so much time on your art studies, and so thoroughly enjoy that kind of work. Then those little dinner-cards, and german favors you do, are so beautiful. I am sure you have any number of friends who would be glad to give you orders."

"No, Cousin Ray," answered Bethany decidedly; "I must have something that brings in a settled income, something that can be depended on. While I have painted some very acceptable things, I never was cut out for a teacher. I'd rather not attempt anything in which I can never be more than third-rate. I've decided to study stenography. I am sure I can master that, and command a first-class position. I have heard papa complain a great many times of the difficulty in obtaining a really good stenographer. Of the hundreds who attempt the work, such a small per cent are really proficient enough to undertake court reporting."

"You're just like your father," said Mrs. Marion. "Uncle Richard would never be anything if he couldn't be uppermost."

It had been nearly a year since that conversation. Bethany had persevered in her undertaking until she felt confident that she had accomplished her purpose. She was ready for any position that offered, but there seemed to be no vacancies anywhere. The little sum in the bank was dwindling away with frightful rapidity. She was afraid to encroach on it any further, but the bills had to be met constantly.

Presently she drew her chair over to the library table, and spread out her check-book and memoranda under the student-lamp, to look over the accounts for the month just ended. Then she made a list of the probable expenses of the next two months. The contrast between their needs and their means was appalling.

"It will take every cent!" she exclaimed, in a distressed whisper. "When the first of September comes, there will be nothing left but to sell the old home and go away somewhere to a strange place."

The prospect of leaving the dear old place, that had grown to seem almost like a human friend, was the last drop that made the day's cup of misery overflow. The old doubt came back.

"I wonder if God really cares for us in a temporal way?" she asked herself.

The frightful tales of witchcraft that Jack had been so interested in, recurred to her. Many of the people who had been so fearfully tortured and persecuted as witches were Christians. God had not interfered in their behalf, she told herself. Why should he trouble himself about her?

She went back to her seat by the fender, and, with her chin resting in her hand, looked drearily into the embers, as if they could answer the question. She heard some one come up on the porch and ring the bell. It was Dr. Trent's quick, imperative summons.

"Jack in bed?" he asked, in his brisk way, as she ushered him into the library. "Well, it makes no difference; you know how to adjust the brace anyway. He will be able to sit up all day with that on."

He gave an appreciative glance around the cheerful room, and spread his hands out towards the fire.

"Ah, that looks comfortable!" he exclaimed, rubbing them together. "I wish I could stay and enjoy it with you. I have just come in from a long drive, and must answer another call away out in the country. You'd be surprised to find how damp and chilly it is out to-night."

"I venture you never stopped at the boarding-house at all," answered Bethany, "and that you have not had a mouthful to eat since noon. I am going to get you something. Yes, I shall," she insisted, in spite of his protestations. Luckily, Jack wanted the kettle hung on the crane to-night, so that he could hear it sing as he used to. "The water is boiling, and you shall have a cup of chocolate in no time."

Before he could answer, she was out of the room, and beyond the reach of his remonstrance. He sank into a big chair, and laying his gray head back on the cushions, wearily closed his eyes. He was almost asleep when Bethany came back.

"The fire made me drowsy," he said, apologetically. "I was quite exhausted by the intense heat of this morning. These sudden changes of temperature are bad for one."

"Why, my child!" he exclaimed, seeing the heavy tray she carried, "you have brought me a regular feast. You ought not to have put yourself to such trouble for an old codger used to boarding-house fare."

"All the more reason why you should have a change once in a while," said Bethany, gayly, as she filled the dainty chocolate-pot.

The sight of the doctor's face as she entered the room had almost brought the tears. It looked so worn and haggard. She had not noticed before how white his hair was growing, or how deeply his face was lined.

He had been such an intimate friend of her father's that she had grown up with the feeling that some strong link of kinship certainly existed between them. She had called him "Uncle Doctor" until she was nearly grown. He had been so thoughtful and kind during all her troubles, and especially in Jack's illness, that she longed to show her appreciation by some of the tender little ministrations of which his life was so sadly bare.

"This is what I call solid comfort," he remarked, as he stretched his feet towards the fire and leisurely sipped his chocolate. "I didn't realize I was so tired until I sat down, or so hungry until I began to eat." Then he added, wistfully, "Or how I miss my own fireside until I feel the cheer of others'."

The doubts that had been making Bethany miserable all evening, and that she had forgotten in her efforts to serve her old friend, came back with renewed force.

"Does God really care?" she asked herself again. Here was this man, one of the best she had ever known, left to stumble along under the weight of a living sorrow, the things he cared for most, denied him.

"Baxter Trent is one of the world's heroes," she had heard her father say.

There were two things he held dearer than life—the honor of the old family name that had come down to him unspotted through generations, and his little home-loving wife. For fifteen years he had experienced as much of the happiness of home-life as a physician with a large practice can know. Then word came to him from another city that his only brother had killed a man in a drunken brawl, and then taken his own life, leaving nothing but the memory of a wild career and a heavy debt. He had borrowed a large amount from an unsuspecting old aunt, and left her almost penniless.

When Dr. Trent recovered from the first shock of the discovery, he quietly set to work to wipe out the disgraceful record as far as lay in his power, by assuming the debt. He could eradicate at least that much of the stain on the family name. It had taken years to do it. Bethany was not sure that it was yet accomplished, for another trial, worse than the first, had come to weaken his strength and dispel his courage.

The idolized little wife became affected by some nervous malady that resulted in hopeless insanity.

Bethany had a dim recollection of the doctor's daughter, a little brown-eyed child of her own age. She could remember playing hide-and-seek with her one day in an old peony-garden. But she had died years ago. There was only one other child—Lee. He had grown to be a big boy of ten now, but he was too young to feel his mother's loss at the time she was taken away. Bethany knew that she was still living in a private asylum near town, and that the doctor saw her every day, no matter how violent she was. Lee was the one bright spot left in his life. Busy night and day with his patients, he saw very little of the boy. The child had never known any home but a boarding-house, and was as lawless and unrestrained as some little wild animal. But the doctor saw no fault in him. He praised the reports brought home from school of high per cents in his studies, knowing nothing of his open defiance to authority. He kissed the innocent-looking face on the pillow next his own when he came in late at night, never dreaming of the forbidden places it had been during the day.

Everybody said, "Poor Baxter Trent! It's a pity that Lee is such a little terror;" but no one warned him. Perhaps he would not have believed them if they had. The thought of all this moved Bethany to sudden speech.

"Uncle Doctor," she broke out impetuously—she had unconsciously used the old name—as she sat down on a low stool near his knee, "I was piling up my troubles to-night before you came. Not the old ones," she added, quickly, as she saw an expression of sympathy cross his face, "but the new ones that confront me."

She gave a mournful little smile.

"'Coming events cast their shadow before,' you know, and these shadows look so dark and threatening. I see no possible way but to sell this home. You have had so much to bear yourself that it seems mean to worry you with my troubles; but I don't know what to do, and I don't know what's the matter with me—"

She stopped abruptly, and choked back a sob. He laid his hand softly on her shining hair.

"Tell me all about it, child," he said, in a soothing tone. Then he added, lightly, "I can't make a diagnosis of the case until I know all the symptoms."

When he had heard her little outburst of worry and distrust, he said, slowly:

"You have done all in your power to prepare yourself for a position as stenographer. You have done all you could to secure such a position, and have been unsuccessful. But you still have a roof over your head, you still have enough on hands to keep you two months longer without selling the house or even renting it—an arrangement that has not seemed to occur to you." He smiled down into her disconsolate face. "It strikes me that a certain little lass I know has been praying, 'Give us this day our to-morrow's bread.' O Bethany, child, can you never learn to trust?"

"But isn't it right for me to be anxious about providing some way to keep the house?" she cried. "Isn't it right to plan and pray for the future? You can't realize how it would hurt me to give up this place."

"I think I can," he answered, gently. "You forget I have been called on to make just such a sacrifice. You can do it, too, if it is what the All-wise Father sees is best for you. Folks may not think me much of a Christian. They rarely see me in Church—my profession does not allow it. I am not demonstrative. It is hard for me to speak of these sacred things, unless it is when I see some poor soul about to slip into eternity; but I thank the good Father I know how to trust. No matter how he has hurt me, I have been able to hang on to his promises, and say, 'All right, Lord. The case is entirely in your hands. Amputate, if it is necessary; cut to the very heart, if you will. You know what is best.'"

He pushed the long tray of dishes farther on the table, and, rising suddenly, walked over to the book-shelves nearest the chimney. After several moments' close scrutiny, he took out a well-worn book.

"Ah, I thought it was here," he remarked. "I want to read you a passage that caught my eyes in here once. I remember showing it to your father."

He turned the pages rapidly till he found the place. Then seating himself by the lamp again, he began to read:

"It came to my mind a week or two ago, so full an' sweet an' precious that I can hardly think of anything else. It was during them cold, northeast winds; these winds had made my cough very bad, an' I was shook all to bits, and felt very ill. My wife was sitting by my side, an' once, when I had a sharp fit of it, she put down her work, an' looked at me till her eyes filled with tears, an' she says, 'Frankie, Frankie, whatever will become of us when you be gone?' She was making a warm little petticoat for the little maid; so, after a minute or two, I took hold of it, an' says, 'What are 'ee making, my dear?' She held it up without a word; her heart was too full to speak. 'For the little maid?' I says. 'An' a nice, warm thing, too. How comfortable it will keep her! Does she know about it yet?'

"'Know about it? Why, of course not,' said the wife, wondering. 'What should she know about it for?'

"I waited another minute, an' then I said: 'What a wonderful mother you must be, wifie, to think about the little maid like that!'

"'Wonderful, Frankie? Why, it would be more like wonderful if I forgot that the cold weather was a-coming, and that the little maid would be a-wanting something warm.'

"So, then, you see, I had got her, my friends, and Frankie smiled. 'O wife,' says I, 'do you think that you be going to take care o' the little maid like that an' your Father in heaven be a-going to forget you altogether? Come now (bless him!), isn't he as much to be trusted as you are! An' do you think that he'd see the winter coming up sharp and cold, an' not have something waiting for you, an' just what you want, too? An' I know, dear wifie, that you wouldn't like to hear the little maid go a-fretting, and saying: "There the cold winter be a-coming, an' whatever shall I do if my mother should forget me?" Why, you'd be hurt an' grieved that she should doubt you like that. She knows that you care for her, an' what more does she need to know? That's enough to keep her from fretting about anything. "Your heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of all these things." That be put down in his book for you, wifie, and on purpose for you; an' you grieve an' hurt him when you go to fretting about the future, an' doubting his love.'"

Dr. Trent closed the book, and looked into his listener's thoughtful eyes.

"There, Bethany," he said, "is the lesson I have learned. Nothing is withheld that we really need. Sometimes I have thought that I was tried beyond my power of endurance, but when His hand has fallen the heaviest, His infinite fatherliness has seemed most near; and often, when I least expected it, some great blessing has surprised me. I have learned, after a long time, that when we put ourselves unreservedly in His hands, he is far kinder to us than we would be to ourselves.

The tears had gathered in Bethany's eyes as she listened. Now she hastily brushed them aside. The face that she turned toward her old friend reminded him of a snowdrop that had caught a gleam of sunshine in the midst of an April shower.

"You have brushed away my last doubt and foreboding, Uncle Doctor!" she exclaimed. "Really, I have been entertaining an angel unawares."

The old clock in the hall sounded the half-hour chime, and he rose to go.

"You have beguiled me into staying much longer than I intended," he answered. "What will my poor patients in the country think of such a long delay?"

"Tell them you have been opening blind eyes," she said, gravely. "Indeed, Uncle Doctor, the knowledge that, despite all you have suffered, you can still trust so implicitly, strengthens my faith more than you can imagine."

At the hall door he turned and took both her hands in his:

"There is another thing to remember," he said. "You are only called on to live one day at a time. One can endure almost any ache until sundown, or bear up under almost any load if the goal is in sight. Travel only to the mile-post you can see, my little maid. Don't worry about the ones that mark the to-morrows."

CHAPTER VI.

All the time she was dressing she heard Jack singing lustily in the next room. He was impatient to try the new brace, and paused between solos to exhort her to greater haste. She knelt just an instant by the low window-seat. The prayer she made was one of the shortest she had ever uttered, and one of the most heartfelt: "Give me this day my daily bread." That was all; yet it included everything—strength, courage, temporal help, disappointments or blessings—anything the dear Father saw she needed in her spiritual growth. When she arose from her knees, it was with a feeling of perfect security and peace. No matter what the day might bring forth, she would take it trustingly, and be thankful.

About an hour after breakfast she wheeled Jack to a front window. It was growing very warm again.

"It doesn't hurt me at all to sit up with this brace on," he said. "If you like, I'll help you practice, while I watch people go by on the street." He had often helped her gain stenographic speed by dictating rapid sentences. He read too slowly to be of any service that way, but he knew yards of nursery rhymes that he could repeat with amazing rapidity.

"I know there isn't a lawyer living that can make a speech as fast as I can say the piece about 'Who killed Cock Robin,'" he remarked when he first proposed such dictation; "and I can say the 'Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers' verse fast enough to make you dizzy."

Bethany's pencil was flying as rapidly as the boy's tongue, when they heard a cheery voice in the hall.

"It's Cousin Ray!" cried Jack. "I have felt all morning that something nice was going to happen, and now it has." Then he called out in a tragic tone, "'By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.'"

"You saucy boy!" laughed Mrs. Marion, as she appeared in the doorway. "I think he is decidedly better, Bethany; you need not worry about him any longer."

She stooped to kiss his forehead, and drop a great yellow pear in his lap.

"No; I haven't time to stay," she said, when Bethany insisted on taking her hat. "I am to entertain the Missionary Society this afternoon, and Dr. Bascom has given me an unusually long list of the 'sick and in prison' kind to look after this month. It gives me an 'all out of breath' sensation every time I think of all that ought to be attended to."

She dropped into a chair near a window, and picked up a fan.

"You never could guess my errand," she began, hesitatingly.

"I know it is something nice," said Jack, "from the way your eyes shine."

"I think it is fine," she answered; "but I don't know how it will impress Bethany."

She plunged into the subject abruptly.

"The Courtney sisters want to come here to live."

"The Courtney sisters!" echoed Bethany, blankly. "To live! In our house? O Cousin Ray! I have realized for some time that we might have to give up the dear old place; but I did hope that it need not be to strangers."

"Why, they are not strangers, Bethany. They went to school with your mother for years and years. You have heard of Harry and Carrie Morse, I am sure."

"O yes," answered Bethany, quickly. "They were the twins who used to do such outlandish things at Forest Seminary. I remember, mamma used to speak of them very often. But I thought you said it was the Courtney sisters who wanted the house."

"I did. They married brothers, Joe and Ralph Courtney, who were both killed in the late war. They have been widows for over thirty years, you see. They are just the dearest old souls! They have been away so many, many years, of course you can't remember them. I did not know they were in the city until last night. But just as soon as I heard that they had come to stay, and wanted to go to housekeeping, I thought of you immediately. I couldn't wait for the storm to stop. I went over to see them in all that rain."

"Well," prompted Bethany, breathlessly, as Mrs. Marion paused.

She gave a quick glance around the room. She felt sick and faint, now that the prospect of leaving stared her in the face. Yet she felt that, since it had been unsolicited, there must be something providential in the sending of such an opportunity.

"O, they will be only too glad to come," resumed Mrs. Marion, "if you are willing. They remembered the arrangement of the house perfectly, and we planned it all out beautifully. Since Jack's accident you sleep down-stairs anyhow. You could keep the library and the two smaller rooms back of it, and may be a couple of rooms up-stairs. They would take the rest of the house, and board you and Jack for the rent. Your bread and butter would be assured in that way. They are model housekeepers, and such a comfortable sort of bodies to have around, that I couldn't possibly think of a nicer arrangement. Then you could devote your time and strength to something more profitable than taking care of this big house."

"O, Cousin Ray!" was all the happy girl could gasp. Her voice faltered from sheer gladness. "You can't imagine what a load you have lifted from me. I love every inch of this place, every stone in its old gray walls. I couldn't bear to think of giving it up. And, just to think! last night, at the very time I was most despondent, the problem was being solved. I can never thank you enough."

"The idea!" exclaimed Mrs. Marion, as she rose to go. "No thanks are due me, child. And Miss Caroline and Miss Harriet, as everybody still calls them, are just as anxious for such an arrangement as you can possibly be. They'll be over to see you to-morrow, for they are quite anxious to get settled. They have roamed about the world so long they begin to feel that 'there's no place like home.' Jack, they've been in China and Africa and the South Sea Islands. Think of the charming tales in store for you!"

"Goodness, Bethany!" exclaimed Jack, when she came back into the room after walking to the gate with Mrs. Marion. "Your face shines as if there was a light inside of you."

"O, there is, Jackie boy," she answered, giving him an ecstatic hug. "I am so very happy! It seems too good to be true."

"Cousin Ray is awful good to us," remarked the boy, thoughtfully. "Seems to me she is always busy doing something for somebody. She never has a minute for herself. I remember, when I used to go up there, people kept coming all day long, and every one of them wanted something. Why do you suppose they all went to her? Did she tell them they might?"

"Jack, do you remember the plant you had in your window last winter?" she replied. "No matter how many times I turned the jar that held it, the flower always turned around again towards the sun. People are the same way, dear. They unconsciously spread out their leaves towards those who have help and comfort to give. They feel they are welcome, without asking."

"She makes me think of that verse in 'Mother Goose,'" said Jack. "'Sugar and spice and everything nice.' Doesn't she you, sister?"

"No," said Bethany, with an amused smile. "Lowell has described her:

"I don't 'zactly understand," said Jack, with a puzzled expression.

She explained it, and he repeated it over and over, until he had it firmly fixed in his mind.

Then they went back to the dictation exercises. It was almost dark when they had another caller. Mr. Marion stopped at the door on his way home to dinner.

"I have good news for you, Bethany," he said, with his face aglow with eager sympathy. "Did Ray tell you?"

"About the house?" she said. "Yes. I've been on a mountain-top all day because of it."

"O, I don't mean that!" he exclaimed, hastily. "It's better than that. I mean about Porter & Edmunds."

"I don't see how anything could be better than the news she brought," said Bethany.

"Well, it is. Mr. Porter asked me to see their new law-office to-day. They have just moved into the Clifton Block. They have an elegant place. As I looked around, making mental notes of all the fine furnishings, I thought of you, and wished you had such a position. I asked him if he needed a stenographer. It was a random shot, for I had no idea they did. The young man they have has been there so long, I considered him a fixture. To my surprise he told me the fellow is going into business for himself, and the place will be open next week. I told him I could fill it for him to his supreme satisfaction. He promised to give you the refusal of it until to-morrow noon. I leave to-night on a business-trip, or I would take you over and introduce you."

"O, thank you, Cousin Frank!" she exclaimed. "I know Mr. Edmunds very well. He was a warm friend of papa's."

Then she added, impulsively:

"Yesterday I thought I had come to such a dark place that I couldn't see my hand before my face. I was just so blue and discouraged I was ready to give up, and now the way has grown so plain and easy, all at once, I feel that I must be living in a dream."

"Bless your brave little soul!" he exclaimed, holding out his hand. "Why didn't you come to me with your troubles? Remember I am always glad to smooth the way for you, just as much as lies in my power."

When he had gone, Bethany crept away into the quiet twilight of the library, and, kneeling before the big arm-chair, laid her head in its cushioned seat.

"O Father," she whispered, "I am so ashamed of myself to think I ever doubted thee for one single moment. Forgive me, please, and help me through every hour of every day to trust unfalteringly in thy great love and goodness."

CHAPTER VII.

She wheeled Jack out into the shady, vine-covered piazza, and brought him a pile of things for him to amuse himself with in her absence.

"Ring your bell for Mena if you need anything else," she said. "I will be back before the sun gets around to this side of the house, maybe in less than an hour."

He caught at her dress with a detaining grasp, and a troubled look came over his face.

"O sister! I just thought of it. If you do get that place, will I have to stay here all day by myself?"

"O no," she answered. "Mena can wheel you around the garden, and wait on you; and I will think of all sorts of things to keep you busy. Then the old ladies will be here, and I am sure they will be kind to you. I'll be home at noon, and we'll have lovely long evenings together."

"But if those people come, Mena will have so much more to do, she'll never have any time to wheel me. Couldn't you take me with you?" he asked, wistfully. "I wouldn't be a bit of bother. I'd take my books and study, or look out of the window all the time, and keep just as quiet! Please ask 'em if I can't come too, sister!"

It was hard to resist the pleading tone.

"Maybe they'll not want me," answered Bethany. "I'll have to settle that matter before making any promises. But never mind, dear, we'll arrange it in some way."

It was a warm July morning. As Bethany walked slowly toward the business portion of the town, several groups of girls passed her, evidently on their way to work, from the few words she overheard in passing. Most of them looked tired and languid, as if the daily routine of such a treadmill existence was slowly draining their vitality. Two or three had a pert, bold air, that their contact with business life had given them. One was chewing gum and repeating in a loud voice some conversation she had had with her "boss."

Bethany's heart sank as she suddenly realized that she was about to join the great working-class of which this ill-bred girl was a member. Not that she had any of the false pride that pushes a woman who is an independent wage-winner to a lower social scale than one whom circumstances have happily hedged about with home walls; but she had recalled at that moment some of her acquaintances who would do just such a thing. In their short-sighted, self-assumed superiority, they could make no discrimination between the girl at the cigar-stand, who flirted with her customer, and the girl in the school-room, who taught her pupils more from her inherent refinement and gentleness than from their text-books.

She had remembered that Belle Romney had said to her one day, as they drove past a great factory where the girls were swarming out at noon: "Do you know, Bethany dear, I would rather lie down and die than have to work in such a place. You can't imagine what a horror I have of being obliged to work for a living, no matter in what way. I would feel utterly disgraced to come down to such a thing; but I suppose these poor creatures are so accustomed to it they never mind it."

Bethany's eyes blazed. She knew Belle Romney's position was due entirely to the tolerance of a distant relative. She longed to answer vehemently: "Well, I would starve before I would deliberately sit down to be a willing dependent on the charity of my friends. It's only a species of genteel pauperism, and none the less despicable because of the purple and fine linen it flaunts in."

She had not made the speech, however. Belle leaned back in the carriage, and folded her daintily-gloved hands, as they passed the factory-girls, with an air of complacency that amused Bethany then. It nettled her now to remember it.

She turned into the street where the Clifton Block stood, an imposing building, whose first two floors were occupied by lawyers' offices. Porter & Edmunds were on the second floor. The elevator-boy showed her the room. The door stood open, exposing an inviting interior, for the walls were lined with books, and the rugs and massive furniture bespoke taste as well as wealth.

An elderly gentleman, with his heels on the window-sill and his back to the door, was vigorously smoking. He was waiting for a backwoods client, who had an early engagement. His feet came to the floor with sudden force, and his cigar was tossed hastily out of the window when he heard Bethany's voice saying, timidly,

"May I come in, Mr. Edmunds?"

He came forward with old-school gallantry. It was not often his office was brightened by such a visitor.

"Why, it is Miss Hallam!" he exclaimed, in surprise, secretly wondering what had brought her to his office.

He had met her often in her father's house, and had seen her the center of many an admiring group at parties and receptions. She had always impressed him as having the air of one who had been surrounded by only the most refined influences of life. He thought her unusually charming this morning, all in black, with such a timid, almost childish expression in her big, gray eyes.

"Take this seat by the window, Miss Hallam," he said, cordially. "I hope this cigar smoke does not annoy you. I had no idea I should have the honor of entertaining a lady, or I should not have indulged."

"Didn't Mr. Marion tell you I was coming this morning?" asked Bethany, in some embarrassment.

"No, not a word. I believe he said something to Mr. Porter about a typewriter-girl that wants a place, but I am sure he never mentioned that you intended doing us the honor of calling."

Bethany smiled faintly.

"I am the typewriter-girl that wants the place," she answered.

"You!" ejaculated Mr. Edmunds, standing up in his surprise, and beginning to stutter as he always did when much excited. "You! w'y-w'y-w'y, you don't say so!" he finally managed to blurt out.

"What is it that is so astonishing?" asked Bethany, beginning to be amused. "Do you think it is presumptuous in me to aspire to such a position? I assure you I have a very fair speed."

"No," answered Mr. Edmunds, "it's not that; but I never any more thought of your going out in the world to make a living than a-a-a pet canary," he added, in confusion.

He seated himself again, and began tapping on the table with a paper-knife.

"Can't you paint, or give music lessons, or teach French?" he asked, half impatiently. "A girl brought up as you have been has no business jostling up against the world, especially the part of a world one sees in the court-room."

Bethany looked at him gravely.

"Yes," she answered, "I can do all those things after a fashion, but none of them well enough to measure up to my standard of proficiency, which is a high one. I do understand stenography, and I am confident I can do thorough, first-class work. I think, too, Mr. Edmunds, that it is a mistaken idea that the girl who has had the most sheltered home-life is the one least fitted to go into such places. Papa used to say we are like the planets; we carry our own atmosphere with us. I am sure one may carry the same personality into a reporter's stand that she would into a drawing-room. We need not necessarily change with our surroundings."

As she spoke, a slight tinge of pink flushed her cheeks, and she unconsciously raised her chin a trifle haughtily. Mr. Edmunds looked at her admiringly, and then made a gallant bow.

"I am sure, Miss Hallam would grace any position she might choose to fill," he said courteously.

"Then you will let me try," she asked, eagerly. She slipped off her glove, and took pencil and paper from the table. "If you will only test my speed, maybe you can make a decision sooner."

He dictated several pages, which she wrote to his entire satisfaction.

"You are not half as rapid as Jack," she said, laughingly; and then she told him of the practice she had had writing nursery rhymes.

He seemed so interested that she went on to tell him more about the child, and his great desire to be in the office with her.

"I told him I would ask you," she said, finally; "but that it was a very unusual thing to do, and that I doubted very much if any business firm would allow it."

He saw how hard it had been for her to prefer such a request, and smiled reassuringly.

"It would be a very small thing for me to do for Richard Hallam's boy," he said. "Tell the little fellow to come, and welcome. He need not be in any one's way. We have three rooms in this suite, and you will occupy the one at the far end."

It was hard for Bethany to keep back the tears.

"I can never thank you enough, Mr. Edmunds," she said. "The legacy papa thought he had secured to us was swept away, but he has left us one thing that more than compensates—the heritage of his friendships. I have been finding out lately what a great thing it is to be rich in friends."

Bethany went home jubilant. "Now if my twin tenants turn out to be half as nice," she thought, "this will be a very satisfactory day."

She tried to picture them, as she walked rapidly on, wondering whether they would be prim and dignified, or nervous and fussy. Mrs. Marion had said they were fine housekeepers. That might mean they were exacting and hard to please.

"What's the use of borrowing trouble?" she concluded, finally. "I'll take Uncle Doctor's advice, and not try to count to-morrow's milestones."

She found them sitting on the side piazza, being abundantly entertained by Jack.

"Sister!" he called, excitedly, as she came up the steps to meet them; "this one is Aunt Harry—that's what she told me to call her—and the other one is Aunt Carrie; and they've both been around the world together, and both ridden on elephants."

There was a general laugh at the unceremonious introduction.

Miss Caroline took Bethany's hands in her own little plump ones, and stood on tiptoe to give her a hearty kiss. Miss Harriet did the same, holding her a moment longer to look at her with fond scrutiny.

"Such a striking resemblance to your dear mother," she said. "Sister and I hoped you would look like her."

"They are homely little bodies, and dreadfully old-fashioned," was Bethany's first impression, as she looked at them in their plain dresses of Quaker gray. "But their voices are so musical, and they have such good, motherly faces, I believe they will prove to be real restful kind of people."

"Sister and I have been such birds of passage, that it will seem good to settle down in a real home-nest for a while," said Miss Harriet, as they were going over the house together.

"When one has lived in a trunk for a decade, one appreciates big, roomy closets and wardrobes like these."

They went all over the place, from garret to cellar, and sat down to rest beside an open window, where a climbing rose shook its fragrance in with every passing breeze.

"Mrs. Marion thought you might not be ready for us before next week," sighed Miss Caroline; "but these cool, airy rooms do tempt me so. I wish we could come this very afternoon." She smiled insinuatingly at Bethany. "We have nothing to move but our trunks."

"Well, why not?" answered Bethany. "I shall be glad to surrender the reins any time you want to assume the responsibility."

"Then it's settled!" cried Miss Caroline, exultingly. "O, I'm so glad!" and, catching Miss Harriet around her capacious waist, she whirled her around the room, regardless of her protestations, until their spectacles slid down their noses, and they were out of breath.

Bethany watched them in speechless amazement. Miss Caroline turned in time to catch her expression of alarm.

"Did you think we had lost our senses, dear?" she asked. "We do not often forget our dignity so; but we have been so long like Noah's dove, with no rest for the sole of our foot, that the thought of having at last found an abiding-place is really overwhelming."

"I wish you wouldn't always say 'we,'" remarked Miss Harriet, with dignity. "I am very sure I have outgrown such ridiculous exhibitions of enthusiasm, and it is fully time that you had too."

"O, come now, Harry," responded Miss Caroline, soothingly. "You're just as glad as I am, and there's no use in trying to hide our real selves from people we are going to live with."

Then she turned to Bethany with an apologetic air.

"Sister thinks because we have arrived at a certain date on our calendar, we must conform to that date. But, try as hard as I can, I fail to feel any older sometimes than I used to at Forest Seminary, when we made midnight raids on the pantry, and had all sorts of larks. I suppose it does look ridiculous, and I'm sorry; but I can't grow old gracefully, so long as I am just as ready to effervesce as I ever was."

Bethany was amused at the half-reproachful, half-indulgent look that Miss Harriet bestowed on her sister.

"They'll be a constant source of entertainment," she thought. "I wonder how we ever happened to drift together."

Something of the last thought she expressed in a remark to the sisters as they went down stairs together.

"Indeed, we did not drift!" exclaimed Miss Caroline, decidedly. "You needed us, and we needed you, and the great Weaver crossed our life-threads for some purpose of his own."

By nightfall the sisters had taken their places in the old house, as quietly and naturally as twin turtle-doves tuck their heads under their wings in the shelter of a nest. Their presence in the house gave Bethany such a care-free, restful feeling, and a sense of security that she had not had since she had been left at the head of affairs.

After Jack had gone to bed, she drew a rocking-chair out into the wide hall, and sat down to enjoy the cool breeze that swept through it.

Miss Caroline was down in the kitchen, interviewing Mena about breakfast. How delightful it was to be freed from all responsibility of the meals and the marketing! After the next week she would not have even the rooms to attend to, for Miss Caroline had engaged a stout maid to do the housework, that Bethany's inexperienced hands had found so irksome.

Up-stairs, Miss Harriet was stepping briskly around, unpacking one of the trunks. Bethany could hear her singing to herself in a thin, sweet voice, full of old-fashioned quavers and turns. Some of the notes were muffled as she disappeared from time to time in the big closet, and some came with jerky force as she tugged at a refractory bureau drawer.