a and the clatter of hoofs, came the
sound of children's voices calling from the broad piazza,

"Welcome home! Welcome home!"

Then a child's voice sang,

"To give sad children's hearts a joy,
To give the weary rest,
To give to those who need it sore,
This makes a life most blest."

As Bobby's grandfather helped the grown people out of the wagon--the
children had climbed down without waiting for help--he cleared his
throat once or twice.

"I'm nearer conviction than I was," he said.

As she hurried towards the porch, Mrs. Rayburn smiled to herself.

Nan's mother waited, and walked up with Bobby's grandfather. Over her
had come a great and happy change; her eyes were now full of earnest
light, and she had forgotten her headaches and other small ills.

She now looked up into the banker's face.

"After all, life to be beautiful and to reach rightly towards eternity
should be helpful, and self-forgetful; do you not think so?" she said.
"I was long learning the two great commandments, which embody the whole
decalogue, and I probably never should have learned them if it had not
been for these blessed children, and their mother."

"H--m, h--m," said the banker.

On the porch were twenty children. In forty eyes the new light of
happiness was dawning. At the beginning, many of them had been hopeless
and even evil, but now it was all different, for they had found out that
they could laugh.

Aunty Stevens herself, full of laughter and bubbling over with joy at
seeing her friends again, surrounded by the shouting children, made them
more than welcome.

Bobby's grandfather was armed with a huge box, which he had
mysteriously guarded all day; he now set it down upon the porch.

"If you children don't make this box lighter at once, I shall have no
use for you," he declared. And they all, scenting candy with infallible
instinct, fell upon it with rapture.

They had tea on the lawn, that evening, and, after a consultation with
Mrs. Stevens, Bobby's grandfather sent a message over the telephone that
was followed very shortly by a man with ice cream and a huge cake. When
eight o'clock came, one of the teachers began to play a march on the
piano in the hall. At once the children fell into line, marking time
with their feet, and singing,

"Good-night, good-night,
Children and blossoms who sleep all the night,
Always will wake up happy and bright,
Good-night, good-night!"

As they