se we go next year, and take with us as many of our respective
flocks as we can beguile into it."

"Aye, that we will," Dr. Dennis answered; then the two gentlemen went on
their respective ways.

It was a large city, and they were both busy ministers, and lived far
apart, and met but seldom, except in their ministerial meetings; there
was chance for each to have interests that the other knew nothing about.

Marion reached home just in time for supper; the table appointments at
that home were not improving; indeed, there were those who said, that
the bread grew sourer every week; this week, it had added to its
sourness, stickiness, that was horrible to one's fingers and throat. The
dried fruit that had been half stewed, was sweetened with brown sugar,
and the looking over process, so necessary to dried fruit, had been
wholly neglected.

But Marion ate her supper, almost entirely unconscious of these little
defects; that is, she accepted them as a matter of course and looked
serene over it. Things were not as they had been on that rainy evening,
when it had seemed to her that she could never, no _never_ eat another
supper in that house; then, it seemed probable that in that house, or
one like unto it, she would have to eat all the suppers that this dreary
life had in store for her; but now, the days were growing fewer in which
this house would be called her home.

No one knew it; at least, no one but herself and two others. She looked
around on her fellow boarders with a pitying smile; that little
sewing-girl at her left, how _many_ such suppers would she have to eat!

"She shall have a nice one every now and then, see if she doesn't," was
Marion's mental conclusion, with a nod of her glad head; there were so
many nice things to be done! Life was so bright.

Hadn't Gracie Dennis whispered to her this very afternoon:

"Miss Wilbur, one of these days I shall hate to come to school, I shall
want to stay at home."

And she answered softly, surreptitiously kissing the glowing cheek
meanwhile:

"The teacher who reigns here shall be your special friend. And you are
to bring her home with you to lovely little teas that shall be waiting
for you."

This matter of "teas" had gotten a strong hold on Marion. Perhaps,
because in no other way had a sense of unhomelike loneliness pressed
upon her, as at that time when families generally gathered together in
pretty homes.

She went up, presently, to her dingy room. Just eve