, and they were toasting their toes
over the sitting-room fire,--"Luther, do you suppose there ever was
anything between Letty Boynton and your Dick?"

"No," he answered reflectively, "I don't think so. Dick always admired
Letty and went to the house a great deal, but I imagine that was
chiefly for David's sake, for they were as like as peas in a pod in
the matter of mischief. If there had been more than friendship between
Dick and Letty, Dick would never have gone away from Beulah, or if he
had gone, he surely would have come back to see how Letty fared. A
fellow yearns for news of the girl he loves even when he is content to
let silence reign between him and his old father.--What makes you
think there was anything particular, Reba?"

"What makes anybody think anything!--I wonder why some people are
born props, and others leaners or twiners? I believe the very
nursing-bottle leaned heavily against Letty when she lay on her infant
pillow. I didn't know her when she was a child, but I believe that
when she was eight all the other children of three and five in the
village looked to her for support and guidance!"

"It's a great vocation--that of being a prop," smiled the minister, as
he peeled a red Baldwin apple, carefully preserving the spiral and
eating it first.

"I suppose the wobbly vine thinks it's grand to be a stout trellis
when it needs one to climb on, but doesn't the trellis ever want to
twine, I wonder?" And Reba's tone was doubtful.

"Even the trellis leans against the house, Reba."

"Well, Letty never gets a chance either to lean or to twine! Her
family, her friends, her acquaintances, even the stranger within her
gates, will pass trees, barber poles, telephone and telegraph poles,
convenient corners of buildings, fence posts, ladders, and lightning
rods for the sake of winding their weakness around her strength. When
she sits down from sheer exhaustion, they come and prop themselves
against her back. If she goes to bed, they climb up on the footboard,
hang a drooping head, and look her wistfully in the eye for sympathy.
Prop on, prop ever, seems to be the underlying law of the universe!"

"Poor Reba! She is talking of Letty and thinking of herself!" And the
minister's eye twinkled.

"Well, a little!" admitted his wife; "but I'm only a village prop, not
a family one. Where you are concerned"--and she administered an
affectionate pat to his cheek as she rose from her chair--"I'm a
trellis that leans