t
foolish as well as the wisest and best.

Beth longed that morning for something new and smart to wear. Her old
black things looked so rusty in the spring sunshine, she could not
satisfy herself with anything she had. All Aunt Victoria's possessions
were hers, and she examined her boxes, looking for something to
enliven her own sombre dress, and found some lace which she turned
into a collar and cuffs and sewed on. When she saw herself in the
glass with this becoming addition to her dress, her face brightened at
the effect. She knew that Aunt Victoria would have been pleased to see
her look like that--she was always pleased when Beth looked well; and
now, when Beth recollected her sympathy, all the great fountain of
love in her brimmed over, and streamed away in happy little waves, to
break about the dear old aunt somewhere on the foreshore of eternity,
and to add, perhaps, who knows how or what to her bliss.

When Beth went down to breakfast, she was very hungry, but there was
only one little bloater, which must be left for mamma to divide with
Bernadine. There was not much butter either, so Beth took her toast
nearly dry, and her thin coffee with very little milk and no sugar in
it, also for economical reasons; but the coffee was hot, and she was
happy. Her happiness bubbled up in bright little remarks, which
brightened her mother too.

"Mamma," said Beth, taking advantage of her mood, "it's a poor heart
that never rejoices. Let's have a holiday, you and I, to celebrate the
summer."

"But the summer hasn't come," Mrs. Caldwell objected, smiling.

"But summer is coming, is coming," Beth chanted, "and I want to make a
song about it."

"_You_ make a song!" Bernadine exclaimed. "Why, you can't spell
summer."

Beth made a face at her. "I know you want a holiday, mamma," she
resumed. "Come, confess! I work you to death. And there's church
to-day at eleven, and I want to go."

"Well, if you want to go to church," said Mrs. Caldwell, relieved.

Beth did not wait to hear the end of the sentence.

She went to the drawing-room first, and sat down at the little
rosewood piano with a volume of Moore's "Lalla Rookh" open before her.

"From the mountain's warbling fount I come,"

she chanted, with her eyes fixed on the words, but she played as if
she were reading notes. She wove all the poems she loved to music in
this way, and played and sang them softly to herself by the hour
together.

The Lenten service in