essed to Jenny, while the notes they contained were directed to
Mary!

CHAPTER XX.

THE CLOSING OF THE YEAR.

Rapidly the days passed on at Mount Holyoke. Autumn faded into winter,
whose icy breath floated for a time over the mountain tops, and then
melted away at the approach of spring, which, with its swelling buds
and early flowers, gave way in its turn to the long bright days of
summer. And now only a few weeks remained ere the annual examination
at which Ida was to be graduated. Neither Rose nor Jenny were to
return the next year, and nothing but Mr. Lincoln's firmness and good
sense had prevented their being sent for when their mother first heard
that they had failed to enter the Middle class.

Mrs. Lincoln's mortification was undoubtedly greatly increased from
the fact that the despised Mary had entered in advance of her
daughters. "Things are coming to a pretty pass," said she. "Yes, a
pretty pass; but I might have known better than to send my children to
such a school."

Mr. Lincoln could not forbear asking her in a laughing way, "if the
schools which she attended were of a higher order than Mount Holyoke."

Bursting into tears, Mrs. Lincoln replied that "she didn't think she
ought to be _twitted_ of her poverty."

"Neither do I," returned her husband. "You were no more to blame for
working in the factory, than Mary is for having been a pauper!"

Mrs. Lincoln was silent, for she did not particularly care to hear
about her early days, when she had been an operative in the cotton
mills of Southbridge. She had possessed just enough beauty to
captivate the son of the proprietor, who was fresh from college, and
after a few weeks' acquaintance they were married. Fortunately her
husband was a man of good sense, and restrained her from the
commission of many foolish acts. Thus when she insisted upon sending
for Rose and Jenny, he promptly replied that they should not come
home! Still, as Rose seemed discontented, complaining that so much
exercise made her side and shoulder ache, and as Jenny did not wish to
remain another year unless Mary did, he consented that they should
leave school at the close of the term, on condition that they went
somewhere else.

"I shall never make any thing of Henry," said he, "but my daughters
shall receive every advantage, and perhaps one or the other of them
will comfort my old age."

He had spoken truly with regard to Henry, who was studying, or
pretending to study