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 stairhead.
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 involves 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 standpoint whence you discerned only the difficulty again?

"There's one thing, Aunt Faith," said she, as they slowly walked up the
field path; "I couldn'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."

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

"I shall be, this summer."

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

Faith hadn't thought much of herself before. But when she found her aunt
didn't apparently think of her at all, she began to realize keenly all