successfully as their sisters with older heads and wider experience, which, perhaps, is all that is sufficient to say. Picnics and class parties, fishing parties, club dances, nutting excursions, sleigh-rides, sailing on the river-each and all these things were gotten up in season, but always in such a way as to preclude the possibility of any good-hearted boy asking our Hannah. The boys of the class, bless their brave, good hearts, often rebelled and called it "a dog-ond shame, by thunder, that such a splendid girl is always left out." The boys nearly always do condemn such proceedings, and, mind my word, if by chance you find a milk-sop of a boy who will toady to any "set" and ignore real worth, and stoop to do petty spite work to please that "set," drop him like a hot coal. As boy or man, he would be a poor friend-would desert you in your utmost need-give you away at his earliest opportunity. I did not see what was going on for a while, but gradually a realizing sense of matters struck me. You see, young folks can not live entirely on logic, or Latin, or Euclid, nor do they live to their entire satisfaction on beef, bread, or pies and cakes, although they would not live without them for a kingdom; and all these things, so keenly felt, so silently borne by her, were beginning to show their effects upon her face, in her eyes, in her languid walk. Too many times, alas! I had more than a suspicion of tears and many wakeful hours at night. Several times Ben had reported to me parts of conversations overheard by him among the girls, and by putting this and that together, I thought I could guess out the cloud which enveloped the poor girl, and, with John's help, I rather thought we would crush this conspiracy against her. We knew our girl so well that we never thought it necessary to take pains to have others know and appreciate her worth; we had never thrust her forward, and in her modesty and diffidence she would never thrust herself forward, scarcely making herself appreciated; and now John and I blamed ourselves, thinking we might have neglected to do for this child of our dead brother as we would have done by our own. We had a long, earnest talk, and agreed to set about undoing any wrong in ourselves towards her. One of my first moves was to draw a little more heavily upon "the fund" and dress our little charge more tastily-not but she was, and had always been, the pink of perfection in neatness, but you know there are so many little embellishments to set a young lassie off, most of which she had never possessed, never asked for. "Yes," said John, " buy her more gew-gaws and dingle-dangles, like other girls; bless the child, she deserves them more than most girls." I did it, and oh, what a torrent of criticism it stirred up! It was like a spark of fire thrown carelessly upon the tiny train of powder leading to a hidden quantity, which, upon exploding, covered the region around, and revealed to the public things which would otherwise have remained secret. It was one Friday afternoon, a monthly review day for her school, and some members of the visiting board were always present, besides parents or friends-in fact a sort of fete day, and a proper occasion to be a little more dressy than usual. The children had all returned from school, and still I had neither seen nor heard Hannah. Stepping to the door, I said to Ben, "Where is Hannah?" "She is here, ma; she came home ahead of us; I saw her come in the front door." I very quickly went to her room, where I found her in a passion of tears, with her face buried in the pillow at the side of her bed to deaden the fearful sobs which shook her frame like an ague. 66 Why, Hannah, child, what is it? Who has hurt you?" I could get no reply for quite awhile, for she was unable to speak intelligibly; all I could hear were disconnected words and parts of sentences about being "hunted down," and "stabbed," and "disgrace," and "if I could only die." But the hardest tornado must exhaust its force in time, and finally the storm of sobs and tears subsided, and she explained the immediate cause of all this. She had borne sly looks, grimaces and mocking gestures of astonishment at her new and pretty things, in the school-house, which, of course, had to be very sly in order to pass unobserved by the teacher, and with burning cheeks and heart full she hurried down the hall and away, taking a new route toward home to avoid passing along with "the set;" but not stopping to think, she blindly, wildly rushed on, any way to get home, and after turning twice came plump face to face with a group who stood talking, evidently of her. One, the boldest of the party, seized her by the dress, and said: "Oh, how fine-where do you get your clothes? Come, now, don't you feel a little ashamed to flash out so gay, considering all things? "Fine feathers make fine birds," said another. "Have a friend down south who confis |