thing she owned, down to her treasures of colored bottles and
needlework's, mending her father's clothes, and laying them out in her
drawers; lastly, she had Barney brought in from the country, and every
day would creep to the window to see him fed and chirrup to him, whereat
the poor old beast would look up with his dim eye, and try to neigh a
feeble answer. Kitts used to come every day to see her, though he never
said much when he was there: he lugged his great copy of the Venus del
Pardo along with him one day, and left it, thinking she would like to
look at it; Knowles called it trash, when he came. The Doctor came
always in the morning; he told her he would read to her one day, and did
it always afterwards, putting on his horn spectacles, and holding her
old Bible close up to his rugged, anxious face. He used to read most
from the Gospel of St. John. She liked better to hear him than any of
the others, even than Margaret, whose voice was so low and tender:
something in the man's half-savage nature was akin to the child's.

As the day drew near when she was to go, every pleasant trifle seemed to
gather a deeper, solemn meaning. Jenny Balls came in one night, and old
Mrs. Polston.

"We thought you'd like to see her weddin'-dress, Lois," said the old
woman, taking off Jenny's cloak, "seein' as the weddin' was to hev been
to-morrow, and was put off on 'count of you."

Lois did like to see it; sat up, her face quite flushed to see how
nicely it fitted, and stroked back Jenny's soft hair under the veil. And
Jenny, being a warm-hearted little thing, broke into a sobbing fit,
saying that it spoiled it all to have Lois gone.

"Don't muss your veil, child," said Mrs. Polston.

But Jenny cried on, hiding her face in Lois's skinny hand, until Sam
Polston came in, when she grew quiet and shy. The poor deformed girl lay
watching them, as they talked. Very pretty Jenny looked, with her blue
eyes and damp pink cheeks; and it was a manly, grave love in Sam's face,
when it turned to her. A different love from any she had known: better,
she thought. It could not be helped; but it was better.

After they were gone, she lay a long time quiet, with her hand over her
eyes. Forgive her! she, too, was a woman. Ah, it may be there are more
wrongs that shall be righted yonder in the To-Morrow than are set down
in your theology!

And so it was, that, as she drew nearer to this To-Morrow, the brain of
the girl grew clearer,--struggling,