se let me stay," begged Beth. "I will take excellent care
of grandmother, and I will take Nancy's place, so grandmother can lie
down; I know how, I've watched Nancy lots of times. You can take
sister."

This was the final arrangement, and soon after luncheon they drove away
to town. Grandmother disappeared up the beautiful staircase after
shutting the blind doors, and shading the hall from the afternoon sun.

Then Beth arrayed in a red sweeping cap, instead of Nancy's white one,
which she and cook failed to find, and armed with a huge silver salver
for cards, instead of Nancy's small one, took up her position in the
hall, on the bottom stair, to await visitors: but the hall was full of
slumberous shadows, with sunshine flecks dancing down from the blind
doors to the polished floor. It is not strange, therefore, that by and
by the red sweeping cap began to droop over the silver salver, until
finally they all settled down together, and the new parlor maid was
sound asleep, to the music of the tall old clock in the corner of the
hall back under the stairway.

Then some one came up the walk, and rapped briskly with the end of his
riding whip on the blind doors.

The parlor maid suddenly awoke, stumbled to the door, and fumbled with
the fastenings, but it was no use, she couldn't open them; thereupon she
turned the slats and looked through at the young clergyman standing
there.

The red cap nodded affably.

"Could you climb in through the window, s'pose?" she asked.

This was such a new and startling novelty at the Van Stark homestead,
that the visitor laughed, while the parlor maid patiently waited for his
decision.

He had shone in athletics at his college, so when he stopped laughing,
he put his hands on the stone window-sill leading into the library, and
vaulted in so lightly and easily, that Beth was delighted to think she
had thought of it.

She then went back to adjust her sweeping cap, which had dropped off,
and to pick up the salver, which she had put down to free her hands.

"Put your card there," she instructed him, bobbing her head towards the
exact centre of the salver, and thereby completely covering one eye with
that abominably big and wobbly cap.

The reverend gentleman gravely complied, whereupon the maid swung
herself around, but with caution, somewhat after the manner of a boat
carrying too much sail.

After Mrs. Van Stark had come down, the parlor maid reappeared without
her badges of offi