hange in Laura's health
and spirits was silently working in his favor, and that a few more
months of persistent endeavor would conquer your father's prejudice
against him, and make him a stronger man for the trial and the pain. I
read him bits about Laura from your own and Di's letters, and he went
away at last as patient as Jacob ready to serve another 'seven years'
for his beloved Rachel."

"God bless you for it, John!" cried a fervent voice; and, looking up,
they saw the cold, listless Laura transformed into a tender girl, all
aglow with love and longing, as she dropped her mask, and showed a
living countenance eloquent with the first passion and softened by the
first grief of her life.

John rose involuntarily in the presence of an innocent nature whose
sorrow needed no interpreter to him. The girl read sympathy in his
brotherly regard, and found comfort in the friendly voice that asked,
half playfully, half seriously,--

"Shall I tell him that he is not forgotten, even for an Apollo? that
Laura the artist has not conquered Laura the woman? and predict that
the good daughter will yet prove the happy wife?"

With a gesture full of energy, Laura tore her Minerva from top to
bottom, while two great tears rolled down the cheeks grown wan with
hope deferred.

"Tell him I believe all things, hope all things, and that I never can
forget."

Nan went to her and held her fast, leaving the prints of two loving but
grimy hands upon her shoulders; Di looked on approvingly, for, though
stony-hearted regarding the cause, she fully appreciated the effect;
and John, turning to the window, received the commendations of a robin
swaying on an elm-bough with sunshine on its ruddy breast.

The clock struck five, and John declared that he must go; for, being an
old-fashioned soul, he fancied that his mother had a better right to
his last hour than any younger woman in the land,--always remembering
that "she was a widow, and he her only son."

Nan ran away to wash her hands, and came back with the appearance of
one who had washed her face also: and so she had; but there was a
difference in the water.

"Play I'm your father, girls, and remember that it will be six months
before 'that John' will trouble you again."

With which preface the young man kissed his former playfellows as
heartily as the boy had been wont to do, when stern parents banished
him to distant schools, and three little maids bemoaned his fate. But
times w