e could have finished packing at an
hour's notice. Then she insisted on giving some freshening touches to
her mother's winter outfit, and on beginning a set of shirts for Norman,
saying that she wanted to finish all the work she possibly could before
leaving home.

Mrs. Ware used to wonder sometimes at her boundless energy. She would
whirl through the housework, help prepare the meals, do a morning's
ironing, run the sewing machine all afternoon, and then often, after
supper, challenge Norman to some such thing as a bonfire race, to see
which could rake up the greatest pile of autumn leaves in the yard, by
moonlight.

These days of waiting were filled with a queer sense of expectancy, as
the air is sometimes charged with electric currents before a storm. No
matter what she did or what she thought about, it was always with the
sense of something exciting about to happen. The feeling exhilarated
her, deepened the glow in her face, the happy eagerness in her eyes,
until every one around her felt the contagion of her high hopefulness.

"I don't know what it is you're always looking so pleased over," the old
postmaster said to her one day, "but every time after you've been in
here, I catch myself smiling away as broadly as if I'd heard some good
news myself."

"Maybe," answered Mary, "it's because I feel all the time as if I'm just
_going_ to hear some. It's so interesting wondering what turn things
will take. It's like waiting for the curtain to go up on a new play
that you've never heard of before. My curtain may go up in any part of
the United States. It all depends on which letter it is that brings me a
position."

"I should think you'd be a leetle mite anxious," said the Captain, who
was in somewhat of a pessimistic mood that day. "They can't all be
equally good. You remember what the old hymn says:

"'Should I be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease
Whilst others fought to win the prize, and sailed through
bloody seas.'"

"Oh, I'm not expecting any flowery beds of ease," retorted Mary. "I
don't mind hard work and all sorts of disagreeable things if they'll
only prove to be stepping-stones to carry me through my Red Sea. I don't
even ask to go over dry-shod as the Children of the Exodus did. All I
want is a chance to wade."

"That's right! That's right!" exclaimed the Captain admiringly. "That's
the proper spirit to show. It's a pity, though, that you can't do your
wadin