ooking room at the top of the
house, with two narrow windows looking out over a lively prospect of
roofs and chimney-pots. Mrs. Drummond had done her utmost to give it
an air of comfort, but it was, on the whole, a dull, uncomfortable
apartment, in spite of the faded Turkey carpet, and the curtains that
had once been so handsome, but had now merged into unwholesome neutral
tints.

Laura, who was the wit of the family, had nicknamed it the Hospital,
for it seemed to be a receptacle for all the maimed and rickety chairs
of the household, footstools in a dilapidated condition, and odd
pieces of lumber that had no other place. Archibald regarded it with a
troubled gaze; somehow, its dinginess had never before so impressed
him; and then as he looked at his sister the frown deepened on his
face.

"Well, Archie?"

"Oh, Grace, it is no use! I have talked myself hoarse, but the mother
is dead against it: one might as well try to move a rock. We shall
have to make up our minds to bear our disappointment as well as we
can."

"I knew it was hopeless from the first," returned Grace, slowly; but,
as she spoke, a sort of dimness and paleness crept over her face,
belying her words.

She was young, and in youth hope never dies. Beyond the gray daily
horizon there is always a possible gleam, a new to-morrow; youth
abounds in infinite surprises, in probabilities which are as large as
they are vague. Grace told herself that she never hoped much from
Archie's mission; yet when he came to her with his ill success
plainly stamped upon his countenance, the dying out of her dream was
bitter to her.

"I knew it was hopeless from the first," had been her answer, and then
breath for further words failed her, and she sat motionless, with her
hands clasped tightly together, while Archie placed himself on the
window-seat beside her and looked out ruefully at the opposite
chimneys.

Well, it was all over, this dearly-cherished scheme of theirs; she
must go on now with the dull routine of daily duties, she must stoop
her neck afresh to the yoke she had long found so galling; this
school-room must be her world, she must not hope any longer for wider
vistas, for more expansive horizons, for tasks that should be more
congenial to her, for all that was now made impossible.

Mattie, not she, must go and keep Archie's house, and here for a
moment she closed her eyes, the pain was so bitter; she thought of the
old vicarage, of the garden where sh