y you wish.

It was a check for one hundred dollars!

It was not strange that at school next day Alice's thoughts were not on
the recitations, and when one boy spelled beauty "b-o-o-t-i-e," and
raised a laugh, she did not understand why it was. Children are in some
ways as keen as briers, and her pupils soon discovered that "teacher"
was absent-minded and they whispered right and left. When she discovered
it she didn't have the heart to punish them, and was glad when the time
came to dismiss school.

The instinct of her sex was strong within her, however, and that night
she said to Aunt Susan:

"Do you think, auntie, we could manage between us to make up some sort
of a pretty house-dress? Of course I must wear black when I go out, but
it would be no harm to wear something brighter at home. I could get some
delicate gray cashmere, and Mrs. Sloper can cut and fit it, and you and
I can make it evenings. I want a sort of house-gown trimmed with satin.
I wish I dared to have a new hat for church, with a little color in
it,--my mourning-bonnet makes me look so old,--but I am afraid people
would talk."

The feminine fear of looking old was needless in her case.

But how the days dragged, and how many times she counted them to see how
many more were to pass ere that dearly beloved brother was to arrive!
And what sort of a looking fellow was this Frank? she wondered. She
hoped he was tall and dark, not too tall, but good and stout. And how
could she ever entertain them? She could play and sing a few pretty
ballads, and any number of hymns, but as for conversation she felt
herself wholly deficient. Of the world of art, literature, and the drama
she knew but little. She had read a good many novels, it is true, and
had seen "Uncle Tom's Cabin," "East Lynne," and one or two other
tear-moving dramas played in the town hall, but that was all. She had
never even journeyed as far as Boston or New York. "He will think me as
green as the hills around us," she thought ruefully, "but I can't help
it. I can cook some nice things for him to eat, anyhow, and Bert must do
the talking. I wonder if he plays the piano. I hope not, for if he does
I'll not touch it."

Christmas came on Thursday that year and her school was to close for a
week on the Friday before. She had a little plan in her mind, and the
last day of school she called on two of the big boys to help her.

"My brother is coming home to spend Christmas," she said to them, "an