he glanced at the window, and at last the
postman passed. She listened, but there was no knock, and her heart
sank.

"Beth, will you stop drumming with your spoon?" she exclaimed
irritably. As she spoke, however, Kitty came in with the expected
letter in her hand, and Mrs. Caldwell's countenance cleared: "I
thought the postman had passed," she exclaimed.

"No, m'em," Kitty rejoined. "I was standin' at the door, an' he gave
me the letter."

Mrs. Caldwell had opened it by this time, but it was very short. "How
often am I to tell you not to stand at the door, letting in the cold
air, Kitty?" she snapped.

"And how'd I sweep the steps, m'em, if you plase, when I'm not to
stand at the door?"

But Mrs. Caldwell was reading the letter, and again her countenance
cleared. "Papa wants us to go to him as soon as ever we can get
ready!" was her joyful exclamation. "And, oh, they've had such snow!
See, Mildred, here's a sketch of the chapel nearly buried."

"Oh, let me see, too," Beth cried, running round the table to look
over Mildred's shoulder.

"Did papa draw that? How _wonderful_!"

"Beth, don't lean on me so," Mildred said crossly, shaking her off.

The sketch, which was done in ink on half a sheet of paper, showed a
little chapel with great billows of snow rolling along the sides and
up to the roof. After breakfast, Mildred sat down and began to copy it
in pencil, to Beth's intense surprise. The possibility of copying it
herself would never have occurred to her, but when she saw Mildred
doing it of course she must try too. She could make nothing of it,
however, till Mildred showed her how to place each stroke, and then
she was very soon weary of the effort, and gave it up, yawning.
Drawing was not to be one of her accomplishments.

Kitty was to accompany them to the west.

When the day of departure arrived, a great coach and pair came to the
door, and the luggage was piled up on it. Beth, with her mouth set, and
her eyes twice their normal size from excitement, was everywhere,
watching everybody, afraid to miss anything that happened. Her mother's
movements were a source of special interest to her. At the last moment
Mrs. Caldwell slipped away alone to take leave of the place which had
been the first home of her married life. She was a young girl when she
came to it, the daughter of a country gentleman, accustomed to luxury,
but right ready to enjoy poverty with the man of her heart; and poverty
enough she had