ael soon satisfied him, showing him how strong and firm Willie
had made every part of it.

The next evening, Willie went on with his plan, which was to make a way
for Bird Agnes from one tree to another over the whole of the clump. It
took him many evenings, however, to complete it, and a good many more
to construct in the elm tree a thin wooden house cunningly perched upon
several of the strongest boughs and branches. He called it Bird Agnes's
Nest. It had doors and windows, and several stories in it, only the
upper stories did not rest on the lower, but upon higher branches of the
tree. To two of these he made stairs, and a rope-ladder to a third. When
the house was finished, he put a little table in the largest room, and
having got some light chairs from the house, asked his father and mother
and grandmother to tea in Bird Agnes's Nest. But grannie declined to go
up the tree. She said _her_ climbing days were over long ago.

CHAPTER XXII.

WILLIE'S PLANS BUD.

Either they were over, or were only beginning; for, the next winter,
while Willie was at college, grannie was taken ill; and although they
sent for him to come home at once, she had climbed higher ere he
arrived. When they opened her will, they found that she had left
everything to Willie. There was more than a hundred pounds in ready
money, and property that brought in about fifty pounds a-year--not much
to one who would have spent everything on himself, but a good deal to
one who loved other people, and for their sakes would contrive that a
little should go a long way.

So Willie was henceforth able to relieve his father by paying all his
own college expenses. He laid by a little too, as his father wished him,
until he should see how best to use it. His father always talked about
_using_ never about _spending_ money.

When he came home the next summer, he moved again into his own old room,
for Agnes slept in a little closet off her mother's, and much preferred
that to a larger and more solitary room for herself. His mother
especially was glad to have him under the same roof once more at night.
But Willie felt that something ought to be done with the room he
had left in the ruins, for nothing ought to be allowed to spoil by
uselessness. He did not, however, see for some time to what he could
turn it.

I need hardly say that he kept up all his old friendships. No day passed
while he was at home without his going to see some one of his former
co