replied.

"Why, I should be--sixty-five."

"Not as old as either grandmother," said John.

"If the world doesn't come to an end," suggested Hanny, cautiously. She
remembered the fright she had when she was afraid it would come to an
end.

"It isn't half developed," interposed Benny Frank. "And we haven't half
discovered it. What do we know about the heart of Africa or the
interior of China--"

"The great Chinese wall will shut us out of that," interrupted the
little girl. "But it can't go all around China, for the missionaries get
in, and some Chinese get out, like the two little girls."

"There is some outside to China," laughed Benny Frank. "And India is a
wonderful country. There is all of Siberia, too, and British America,
and, beyond the Rocky Mountains, a great country belonging to us that we
know very little about. I believe the world is going to stand long
enough for us to learn all about it. Some day I hope to go around a good
bit and see for myself."

"Some people," began Mrs. Underhill, "reason that, as it was two
thousand years from the Creation to the Deluge, and two thousand years
more to the birth of Christ, that the next two thousand will see the end
of the world."

"They are beginning to think the world more than four or five thousand
years old," said Benny Frank. He had quite a taste for science.

"It'll last my time out, I guess," and there was a shrewd twinkle in
Father Underhill's eye. "And I think there'll be a big piece left for
Hanny."

The little girl of eleven mused over it. She had a great many things to
think about, and her mother suggested presently that there were some
things to do. Margaret went upstairs to straighten the parlor and
arrange a table in the end of the back room for callers. Hanny found
plenty of work, but her small brain kept in a curious confusion, as if
it was running back and forth from the past to the future. Events were
happening so rapidly. And the whole world seemed changed since her
brother Stephen's little boy had been born on Christmas morning.

It was curious, too, to grow older, and to understand books and lessons
so much better, to feel interested in daily events. There was a new
revolution in Mexico; there was a talk of war. But everything went on
happily at home. New York was stretching out like a big boy, showing
rents and patches in his attire, but up-town he was getting into a new
suit, and people exclaimed about the extravagance.

As for St