Year: 1878

she desires-at least desire for her
a home in the North, and | wish that
home to be with you.


"My niece Mary, who inherits the dis
position of her father to a great degree
and he would have gone out Of his way
any day to give dumb bruit pleasure
will, | am sure, be kind to her Carol
will love her for her beauty, if for moth
ing else, and the rest of you will love
her because she is most lovable. Her
maid will accompany her.


At present her affairs are in tangle,
but | hope to unravle them in the
corse of few months, and then you
will be recompensed for whatever extra
expense she may cause you. | would
enclose check at presant writing, but
| all my funds are invested in a specula-
tion from which expect to reap much
profit Do the best you can until you
hear from me again, when will farther
unfold my plans in regard to Miss Ash
bell, who, by-the-by, starts tomorrow


AUNT"


No wonder CONSERVATION and dismay
were depicted on every countenance
when ceased reading this letter. No
wonder we looked gaspingly at each
other. What in the world were we to
do with this fine young lady in our hum
BILE home?


What could aunt be thinking about?
She didn't know how poor we were, we d
been too proud to acknowledge our ox-
treme poverty in our few and far-be-
tween letters. On the contrary, | am
afraid we had led her to believe that
we were in quite fourishing condition
But for all that, she ought to have
! known that we were not fourishing
enough to support delicate and beauti-
full girl, used to luxury, tenderness, and
devotion, for even few months. Was
ever anything so malaproposed and vex-
atious? OF course Miss Ashbell would
look with scorn on our seven-ro0med
dwelling, with back garden twenty-five
by twenty-five, and court yard ten by
ten. And suppose-as aunt, with a
short t-sightedness very unusual to her,
complacently emarked-Carrol should
fall in loqe with her? The proud Eng
lish girl would no doubt regard him as
fortune hunter, and invidiously compare
his frank, impulsive, rather brusque
manners with the repOse and awful
dignity of the languid swells of her
own land


And somebody else might attracted
towards her-men are so susceptible
to woman's beauty-somebody who now
thought my face the sweetest in the
world The very thought made my
heart stop beating.


And the maid? Even if we can make
arrangements to accommodate her
and it seems utterly impossible For us
to do society, our faithful servant
for the last fifteen years, would look
upon her in the light of an interloper,
and treat her as such. Betty had used
to being monarch of all she surveyed y
Even in house-cleaning tlmes-those
times that try mems souls and womens
soIes-shc scorned the idea of an assis-
tant.


No, ma am, I'll have no strangers
pokin roun' me. When I'm not able to
do the work of this house alone, III 90"


And mother-dear, shrinking, grief
stricken mother-how would she bear
the advent of this dainty Miss Ashbell?
But we could do nothing to avert the
impending misfortune. Even if we had
thought of disobeying our fathers last
command, and refusing aunt the favor
she had not asked, but in her usual de
cisive way, taken for granted. the young
lady was on her way, and would be here
in day or two.


The news must be Immediately brok
en- to mother and Betty. |, being the
housekeeper, undertook to face the lat
ter. will confess | did it with fear
and trembling. She heard me grimly.
never ceasing to pare the potatoes she
held in her lap, and when l had ended,
looked up with sharp nod of the head,
and said, slowly and emphatically, Bet
ty'll have to go now sure. She can t
stand no fine young ladies and sassy
young ladies maids about for no thing.


Helen went to mother, put her arms
about her neck, and with kiss and a
smile told her of the expected visitor,
adding, with an assumption of gayety:
"Shc shan't come near you at all, man.
ma dear if you don't want her; but you
know aunt has been so kind to us, and
father loved her so dearly, it would be
impossible to refuse the first favor she
ever dSkcU VI US.


Mother said never a word, but began
brushing the hair from her temples with
both her hands in nervous way she
had when anything grieved or annoyed
her.


And then we began preparing for
Miss Ashbell. Wills room was to be
given up to her, and VIII CAROLS
room was scarcely large enough for him
self and his art traps, as he called them)
was to be slowed away in the loft-a
proceeding he viewed with immense
dissatisfaction. I'll smother up there
in hot weather. he said with wry face.
"Oh, [ wish there wasn't any Miss Ash
bell! Why don't she go to a hotel?'


Why don't she?' echoed |.


| said we began to prepare for her,
but for the lack of the before-mention-
ed silver and gold, our preparations
were of the simplest kind. Carol made
and put up two pretty brackets, and
hung, with a sigh-for he hated to part
with them-the few pictures he pos
sessed on the walls I looped back the
white curtains freshly washed and
ironed, with much grumbling, by Bet
ty) with new blue ribbons, and | cover
ed the trunk and ottoman with bright
chintz. and with Helen's' help made a
new mat to place before the bureau, and
we turned an old table-cloth into nap
kins, and bought new napkin-ring and
two or three cut glass goblets, and love-
ly china cup and saucer, and when all
was done, waited with anxious hearts
for our unwelcome guest.


Mother had shut herself up in her
room early in the morning of the day
we expected her, and had remained
there; and the rest of us were all as un-
comfortable as poor, proud, shy, sensi-
tive people could be at the thought of a
perfect strangers ingress into the very
heart of their home, and wishing audi
bly, and inaudibly that Miss Ashbell's
father had never brought her from Eng
land, when, as the sun sank in the west,
and cool summer breeze, fragrant with
the breath of the roses, lifted the cur
tains of our cozy baywindow, a carriage
stopped at our door.


"Shes come, and I'm gone" said
Will, finging down his book and rush
ing out into the garden.


Carol rose from his chair, ran his
fingers through his golden hair, and
glanced in the mirror at his new silk
neck k-tie. Helen sank back on the