ir turn. So the family would go on, and multiply and scatter wide, never
to unite again. And he thought he could catch glimpses, very small and far
away but bright as patches of sunlight upon distant mountain tops, into the
widening vista of those many lives ahead. A wistful look crept over his
face.

"In their lives too we shall be there, the dim strong figures of the past."

* * * * *

Deborah came into the room, and at once the whole atmosphere changed. Her
niece sprang up delightedly.

"Why, Auntie, how lovely you look!" she exclaimed. And Roger eyed Deborah
in surprise. Though she did not believe in mourning, she had been wearing
dark gowns of late to avoid hurting Edith's feelings. But to-night she had
donned bright colors instead; her dress was as near decollete as anything
that Deborah wore, and there was a band of dull blue velvet bound about
her hair.

"Thanks, dearie," she said, smiling. "Shall we go in to dinner now?" she
added to her father. "Edith said not to wait for her--and I'll have to be
off rather early this evening."

"What is it to-night?" he inquired.

"A big meeting at Cooper Union."

And at dinner she went on to say that in her five schools the neighborhood
clubs had combined to hold this meeting, and she herself was to preside. At
once her young niece was all animation.

"Oh, I wish I could go and hear you!" she sighed.

"Afraid you can't, Betsy," her aunt replied. And at this, with an
instinctive glance toward the door where her mother would soon come in to
stop by her mere presence all such conversation, Elizabeth eagerly threw
out one inquiry after the other, pell mell.

"How on earth do you do it?" she wanted to know. "How do you get a speech
ready, Aunt Deborah--how much of it do you write out ahead? Aren't you just
the least bit nervous--now, I mean--this minute? And how will you feel on
the platform? _What on earth do you do with your feet?_"

As the girl bent forward there with her gaze fixed ardently on her aunt,
her grandfather thought in half comic dismay, "Lord, now she'll want to be
a great speaker--like her aunt. And she will tell her mother so!"

"What's the meeting all about?" he inquired. And Deborah began to explain.

In her five schools the poverty was rapidly becoming worse. Each week more
children stayed away or came to school ragged and unkempt, some without any
overcoats, small pitiful mites wearing shoes so old as barely to s