unt Maria, still
unhappy and sore.

"I don't know. But when the thousand is gone I'll earn more if I want to
spend more."

"Ach, my," groaned the woman, "you talk like money grew on trees! What's
the world comin' to nowadays?" She rose and pushed her rugging frame
into a corner of the kitchen.

"Maria," her brother suggested, "we can get a hired girl if the work's
too much for you alone."

"Hired girl! I don't want no hired girl! Half of 'em don't do to suit,
anyhow! I don't just want Phoebe here to help to work. It'll be awful
lonesome with her gone."

Phoebe saw the glint of anguish in the dark eyes and felt that her
aunt's protestations were partly due to a disinclination to be parted
from the child she had reared.

"Aunt Maria," she said kindly, "I hate to do what you think I shouldn't
do, for you're good to me. You mustn't feel that I'm doing this just to
be contrary. You and I think differently, that's all. Perhaps I'm too
young to always think right, but I don't want you to be hurt. I'll come
home often."

"Ach, yes well," the woman was touched by the girl's tenderness, but was
still unconvinced. "Not much use my saying more, I guess. You and your
pop will do what you like. You're a Metz, too, and hard to change when
you make up your mind once."

That night when Phoebe went to bed in her old-fashioned walnut bed she
lay awake for hours, dreaming of the future. If Aunt Maria had known the
visions that flitted before the girl that night she would have quaked in
apprehension, for Phoebe finally drifted into slumber on clouds of
glory, forecasts of the wonderful time when, as a prima donna in
trailing, shimmering gown, she would have the world at her feet while
she sang, sang, sang!

CHAPTER XII

THE PREACHER'S WOOING

THERE belonged to the Metz farm an old stone quarry which Phoebe learned
to love in early childhood and which, as she grew older, she adopted as
her refuge and dreaming-place.

Almost directly opposite the green gate at the country road was a narrow
lane which led to the quarry. It was bordered on the right by a thickly
interlaced hedge of blackberry bushes and wild honeysuckle, beyond which
stood the orchard of the Metz farm. On the left of the lane a wide field
sloped up along the road leading to the summit of the hill where the
schoolhouse and the meeting-house stood. The lane was always inviting.
It was the fair road to a fairer spot, the old stone quarry.

The old stone