s.'

'But she is intense, mamma!' and Belle heaved a sigh of mock despair. 'I
don't believe she knows what laziness is, and I'm sure she will end by
making me ashamed of myself. When I told her we had a three months'
vacation, she never said, "How delightful!" as most girls would, but
calmly inquired what I took up in the holidays, and when I groaned at
the very thought of taking up anything, she said so seriously, "But you
don't let your mind lie fallow for three whole months?" And then she
sighed a little, and added, half to herself, "Some girls would give all
the world for such a chance to read." I believe she is possessed with a
perfect rage for the acquisition of knowledge, and when she goes to
college will pass poor me with leaps and bounds, and carry the hearts
of all the professors in her train.'

'And did you see her,' said Gwendolyn, 'when I happened to mention that
our church was always shut up in the summer because so many people were
out of the city? She just turned those splendid eyes of hers on me until
I actually felt my moral stature shrivelling, and asked, "What about the
people in the city? don't they have to go on living?"'

'She is plucky, though,' said Russell admiringly. 'Did you notice when
you were both screaming because one of our wheels caught in a street car
rail, and the carriage nearly upset, how she never said a word, though
she must have been frightened, for we were nearly over. I like a girl
that has grit enough to hold her tongue.'

'She is a dear child,' said Mr Davis, 'and she has her mother's eyes.'

Upstairs, in her blue-draped chamber, Pauline spoke her verdict to
herself.

'They are all splendid, and I'm a good deal prouder of my relations than
they can be of me. I'm a regular woodpecker among birds of paradise. I
wish I hadn't to be so dreadfully plain. Well, I'll ring true if I _am_
homely, and character is more than clothes, anyway.'

She undressed slowly, her aesthetic eyes revelling in all the dainty
appointments of the room which was to be her very own. Then she knelt by
the broad, low window-seat, and said her prayers, looking away to the
stars, which glowed red, and green, and yellow, in the soft summer sky,
and then, in a great hush of delight, she lay down between the
delicately-perfumed sheets, and gave herself up to the enjoyment of the
present which God had given her. She would not think of Sleepy Hollow.
She had put it by.

_Chapter IV_

A NEW WORLD