folio of crayons of apparently very ancient and very
battered castles; and water-colors of landscapes, where the water was
quite as solid as the land. True, she was quite unable to keep her own
small accounts, and when her father chanced to ask her one day to do for
him a simple addition, he was amazed to find that only after the third
attempt did she get it right; but, in the eyes of her aunt, these were
quite unimportant deficiencies, and for young ladies she was not sure
but that the keeping of accounts and the adding of figures were almost
vulgar accomplishments. Her father thought otherwise, but he was a busy
man, and besides, he shrank from entering into a region strange to him,
but where his sister moved with assured tread. He contented himself with
gratifying his daughter's fancies and indulging her in every way allowed
him by her system of training and education. The main marvel in the
result was that the girl did not grow more selfish, superficial, and
ignorant than she did. Something in her blood helped her, but more, it
was her aunt's touch upon her life. For every week a letter came from
the country manse, bringing with it some of the sweet simplicity of the
country and something like a breath of heaven.

She was nearing her fifteenth birthday, and though almost every letter
brought an invitation to visit the manse in the backwoods, it was only
when the girl's pale cheek and languid air awakened her father's anxiety
that she was allowed to accept the invitation to spend some weeks in the
country.

* * * * *

When Ranald and Hughie drove up to the manse on Saturday evening in the
jumper the whole household rushed forth to see them. They were worth
seeing. Burned black with the sun and the March winds, they would have
easily passed for young Indians. Hughie's clothes were a melancholy and
fluttering ruin; and while Ranald's stout homespun smock and trousers
had successfully defied the bush, his dark face and unkempt hair, his
rough dress and heavy shanty boots, made him appear, to Maimie's eyes,
an uncouth, if not pitiable, object.

"Oh, mother!" cried Hughie, throwing himself upon her, "I'm home again,
and we've had a splendid time, and we made heaps of sugar, and I've
brought you a whole lot." He drew out of his pockets three or four cakes
of maple sugar. "There is one for each," he said, handing them to his
mother.

"Here, Hughie," she replied, "speak to you