, and she
had a sudden vision of the aimlessness of it, and of even the train
bills and advertisements on the wall. She was eager, as all girls are,
for one single controlling fate or fortune to call out all her growing
energies, but she was aware at this moment that she herself must choose
and provide; she must learn to throw herself heartily into her life just
as it was. It was a moment of clear vision to Betty Leicester, and her
cheeks flushed with bright color. It wasn't the thing one had to do, but
the way one learned to do it, that distinguished one's life. Perhaps she
could be famous for every-day homely things and have a real genius for
something so simple that nobody else had thought of it. That night when
Betty said her prayers one new thing came into her mind to be asked for,
and was a great help, so that she often remembered it afterward. "Help
me to have a good time doing every-day things, and to make my work my
pleasure."

X.

UP-COUNTRY.

AUNT BARBARA and Betty had finished their breakfast in the cool
breakfast-room, or little dining-room as it was sometimes called by the
family. This looked out on the short elm-shaded grass of the side yard,
but it was apt to get too warm later in the day. The dining-room was
much larger, and had most of the family portraits in it and a ponderous
sideboard and side tables, and Betty sometimes thought that a good deal
of machinery had to be set running there to give a quiet dinner or
supper just to Aunt Barbara and herself. But the little dining-room was
very cosy, with a small sideboard and a tall clock and an old
looking-glass and very old-fashioned slender wooden armchairs. The sun
came dancing in through the leaves at a square window. The
breakfast-room was nearer the kitchen, and Serena had a sociable custom
of appearing now and then to ask Miss Leicester about the housekeeping.

"There now, Miss Barb'ra," she exclaimed, putting her head in at the
door, while Betty and her aunt still lingered. "You excuse me this time,
but here's Jonathan considers it best to go off up-country looking for
winter's wood, of all things! I told him I'd like to ride up long of him
to see sister Sarah when he went, but I never expected he'd select the
very day I set two weeks ago for us to pick the currants."

"But one day will make very little difference; I thought yesterday when
you spoke of them that they needed a little more sun," said Miss
Leicester persuasively.

"'T