tory of each and a little message from the man
who had sent it. Mom Wallis, too, had baked a queer little cake and sent
it. The young man's face was tender as he spoke of it. The girl saw that
he knew what her coming had meant to Mom Wallis. Her memory went quickly
back to those few words the morning she had wakened in the bunk-house
and found the withered old woman watching her with tears in her eyes.
Poor Mom Wallis, with her pretty girlhood all behind her and such a
blank, dull future ahead! Poor, tired, ill-used, worn-out Mom Wallis!
Margaret's heart went out to her.

"They want to know," said the young man, half hesitatingly, "if some
time, when you get settled and have time, you would come to them again
and sing? I tried to make them understand, of course, that you would be
busy, your time taken with other friends and your work, and you would
not want to come; but they wanted me to tell you they never enjoyed
anything so much in years as your singing. Why, I heard Long Jim singing
'Old Folks at Home' this morning when he was saddling his horse. And
it's made a difference. The men sort of want to straighten up the
bunk-room. Jasper made a new chair yesterday. He said it would do when
you came again." Gardley laughed diffidently, as if he knew their hopes
were all in vain.

But Margaret looked up with sympathy in her face, "I'll come! Of course
I'll come some time," she said, eagerly. "I'll come as soon as I can
arrange it. You tell them we'll have more than one concert yet."

The young man's face lit up with a quick appreciation, and the flash of
his eyes as he looked at her would have told any onlooker that he felt
here was a girl in a thousand, a girl with an angel spirit, if ever such
a one walked the earth.

Now it happened that Rev. Frederick West was walking impatiently up and
down in front of the Tanner residence, looking down the road about that
time. He had spent the morning in looking over the small bundle of "show
sermons" he had brought with him in case of emergency, and had about
decided to accede to Mrs. Tanner's request and preach in Ashland before
he left. This decision had put him in so self-satisfied a mood that he
was eager to announce it before his fellow-boarder. Moreover, he was
hungry, and he could not understand why that impudent boy and that
coquettish young woman should remain away at Sunday-school such an
interminable time.

Mrs. Tanner was frying chicken. He could smell it every tim