said whimsically yet ruefully. "Your aunt is just
right, dear, and we'll make a change at once. What should you say to
going on to New York to make your little actress friend a visit, and
then starting anew after you come back?"

Now the color flew to Elsie's cheeks and words came.

"Oh, Uncle John, I wouldn't go now for the world!" she cried in genuine
dismay. "I'm just longing to go to the library every day--I think it's
just--splendid! And I like it all--everything--so very much. It isn't
the least a treadmill, and I'm so happy doing it. Please, please,
don't take anything away; only give me more."

He felt the sincerity of her words, and again said to himself that the
girl was her mother over again. His wife went over to Elsie, and
stroking back her hair, kissed her brow fondly. And the color died out
of the girl's cheeks and the glow from her heart as she shuddered
within herself. And presently when Mr. Middleton went to his study to
work, she bade Mrs. Middleton a cool good night and fled to her room.

She sat by the window some time, then went to bed; but though the sound
of the rain was soothing, she could not get to sleep. It came to her
that it was very thoughtful of Uncle John to wish to send her to visit
Elsie; and how she would have liked to go if it didn't entail leaving
the library and all the fascinating round of her daily life, and
leaving him to his wife's cold comfort. How she would like to see
Elsie Moss at this moment, to confide her troubles and her happiness to
that sympathetic ear. If they could talk together, she could make the
other understand that even with Mrs. Middleton as a drawback, she was
more content, happier, than she had ever been before. And she couldn't
help feeling that she was useful, too, in a measure--that she would be
missed if she were to go to New York.

Still she could not sleep, and presently she found herself puzzling
over a problem that had been growing upon her and now bulked big. The
truth was that already the weight of the top-heavy household had fallen
upon the girl's shoulders. Utterly unprepared and ignorant, she had
been thrust into a tangled labyrinth of domestic affairs. The more
familiar she had become with the internal working of the household, the
more was she baffled and daunted. And presently it seemed to her
youthful inexperience as if it stood upon the brink of ruin.

Though the minister was unaware that the bills were not paid promp