,
several yards of crash to cut up into kitchen towels and to hem. Her
chair was also a hard kitchen chair; Hollis' mother had never "humored"
herself, she often said, there was not a rocking chair in her house until
all her boys were big boys; she had thumped them all to sleep in a
straight-backed, high, wooden chair. But with this her thumping had
ceased; she was known to be as lax in her government as the father was
strict in his.

She was a little woman, with large, soft black eyes, with a dumb look of
endurance about the lips and a drawl in her subdued voice. She had not
made herself, her loving, rough boys, and her stern, faultfinding
husband, had moulded not only her features, but her character. She was
afraid of God because she was afraid of her husband, but she loved God
because she knew he must love her, else her boys would not love her.

"Is Linnet homesick?" she questioned as her sharp shears cut through the
crash.

"Yes, but not very much. She likes new places. She likes the school, and
the girls, so far, and she likes Miss Prudence's piano. Hollis has been
to see her, and Helen Rheid has called to see her, and invited her and
Miss Prudence to come to tea some time. Miss Prudence wrote me about
Helen, and she's _lovely_, Mrs. Rheid."

"So Hollis said. Have you brought her picture back?"

"Yes'm."

Marjorie slowly drew a large envelope from her pocket, and taking the
imperial from it gazed at it long. There was a strange fascination to her
in the round face, with its dark eyes and mass of dark hair piled high on
the head. It was a vignette and the head seemed to be rising from folds
of black lace, the only ornament was a tiny gold chain on which was
placed a small gold cross.

To Marjorie this picture was the embodiment of every good and beautiful
thing. It was somebody that she might be like when she had read all the
master's books, and learned all pretty, gentle ways. She never saw Helen
Rheid, notwithstanding Helen Rheid's life was one of the moulds in which
some of her influences were formed. Helen Rheid was as much to her as
Mrs. Browning was to Miss Prudence. After another long look she slipped
the picture back into the envelope and laid it on the table behind her.

"You are going with Miss Prudence when Linnet is through, I suppose?"
asked Mrs. Rheid.

"So mother says. It seems a long time to wait, but I am studying at home.
Mother cannot spare me to go to school, now, and Mr. Holmes says h