, it
is not so dear as the keeping of my word. Here, Johnny, take it down
to the corner, and ask Mr. Dolkins to change it for you."

Mr. Marshall listened with a pained contraction of the brows.
"Couldn't you wait until the latter part of next week, Abby?" he
asked. "I think I could get the money for you by that time, and I hate
to have you part with the little keepsake you have treasured so long."

Mrs. Marshall shook her head. "No, Robert," she answered, "for that
would make Johnny break his word, too. You know he promised the
boys,--and we couldn't afford that, could we, son? We must keep our
word at any cost." She slipped the money into his hand, kissed him,
and bade him hurry home again; and Johnny, rushing back to his
impatient creditors, felt that it was something very solemn indeed
which had just taken place.

[Illustration: "'DEAR AS IT IS TO ME, IT IS NOT SO DEAR AS THE KEEPING
OF MY WORD.'"]

Johnny's little room at the head of the stairs was heated by the hall
stove, so that the door stood open all day long. When the new quilt
was folded across the foot of his bed, it was the first thing that
caught the eye of every one passing up the stairs.

Rob made up a verse about it, which he sang so often to tease Johnny
that the first note was enough to make the child bristle up for a
fight:

"This is the patchwork all forlorn,
Made by the boys in Marshall's barn.
The dog and the cat and even the rat
Had a hand in that--
A hand in the Quilt that Jack built!"

"You needn't make fun of it," said Rhoda one day. "It has held me to
my word more than once. Yesterday, for instance. I would have broken
my promise to poor little Miss Sara Grimes, to help her entertain her
old ladies, and would have accepted Harry Dilling's invitation, which
came later, to go sleighing. But that quilt would not let me. It
showed me mother as she stood there with her precious little gold
piece, saying. '_We must keep our word at any cost!_' After that I
couldn't disappoint poor old Miss Sara."

"I know," answered Rob, softly, looking up from his algebra. "It's
served me the same way. It lies there like the exponent of a higher
power,--the exponent of mother's standards and ideals that she expects
us to raise ourselves up to."

Mr. Marshall made a similar confession one day, and it seemed that
Johnny alone was the only member of the family who had no sentiment in
regard to the quilt, except, perhaps, a feeling of gratitud