glow of animation--"with both shame and envy. It
is true I have not proposed to join them," she added in a lower tone,
"because I knew I was young for such work and not half good enough or
clever enough, and because we were all so happy at home--you and father
made us so," and Annie turned away her head, and forthwith came tumbling
down a few steps from the exalted position she had taken up.

"No, don't tell me, Annie Millar," said her mother with something like
passionate resistance, "that any good father or mother can be glad to
send their young daughters out into the wide world to fight and suffer
by themselves. It is not natural and it is not true. It is an altogether
different thing to give them to good men who will take care of them and
make them happy."

"But if the good men are not forthcoming, or if they happen to be the
wrong men," protested Annie. There was an irresistible twinkle in her
dark eyes, in spite of the care and trouble that had come upon the
household, which she was too sensible and warm-hearted a girl not to
share fully.

Dora stood conscience-stricken and guilty-looking, until, as she stroked
her mother's locked hands, she at last found words to put in her humble
petition, "We shan't all go away, mother dear. Father and you must let
one of us stay to take care of you and cheer you?"

"Oh, my dear, we are not old enough, at least I am not old enough to
accept such a boon, supposing we are very poor," said Mrs. Millar
sadly, "and in that case it might be sacrificing one of you, and
spoiling your prospects in life."

"No, no," cried Dora vehemently.

"Dora means that one of us ought to stay at home to set your cap right,"
said Annie brusquely.

It sounded an inopportune jest, positively unfeeling. The truth was
Annie still laboured under the common youthful necessity to hide her
deeper feelings, an obligation made up of a touch of hysterical
excitement, pride, shyness, and possibly the unsubdued buoyance of
two-and-twenty years. The last is apt to rebound swiftly, with a mixture
of cheerfulness and defiance from any sorrow, short of the one sorrow
which cannot be trampled down or made light of, that has its root in a
grave. Annie must find something to laugh at, to get fun out of, in the
tribulation which she nevertheless felt in every nerve of her body, to
the core of her heart.

"I ought to be able to keep my cap straight," said poor Mrs. Millar very
literally and meekly, looking a litt