Year: 1879




How many years have been taking
lessons, mammaP


How many years? Ever since you were
born, was going to say"


And | cant play a page without my
notes, nor then so that the composer wouldn't
run away if he heard me- So what is the
use Now have found just what I'm fit
for. If l only had some sort of carpenter 3
skill"


Well, / should like to know what you
want that for in taking care of hens" said
Bessie.


/ should think it would be of about as
much use as embroidery" said Emily.


Marcia always was so impracticable ~
sighed her mother.


What is it you want to do, Marcia ?"
asAed Philip-Tom's classmate, who spent
half his time at the place.


Just to make boxes and roosts and
hutches for my hens, so az to keep them
wholesome and happy, you know.


Wholesome and happyP said her
mother.


"Why, yes, mamma" said Bessie. al
should think there was really sense in that,
if there is any sense in having the things at
all. If their water is clean, they'll drink
more, and if everything is to their hen
mind, of course they'll lay more"


Marcia, / am ashamed of you," said
her mother 81 must beg to hear no more
such conversation


"Now, Mrs. Thurston," said Phil, I'm
sure saw you laughing And as for me,
I'm going to make those boxes with March
Pm just as good carpenter as Noah"


And so Phil went down the garden with
Marcia, and there were days upon days of
hammering and saving and fitting and
Tom was going about full of mischief, and
Emily had her sewing under the apple
trees near by, and Bessie came down to
bring freshly-baked tart or some hot gin
gerbread.


And Pm sure it's just like picnicking,"
said Marcia. "You ought to be obliged to
me for making such a pleasant occasion
And | am awfully sorry that we're almost
through" And as she uttered the last
sentence, Philip happening to glance down
at her in that moment from the ladder
where he was standing her face suddenly
famed up as if torch had been held before
it, and she turned and hid its color over
box of old nails that she and Tom an age
ago that seemed now-had taken at school
in exchange for pins, meaning to sell them





purpose by one of Mrs. Thurston's methods
of persuasion.


Mamma was always the enemy of enter
prise" said Tom, when they found the box
| suppose it's the oil of birch that has kept
these nails from getting rusty"


But as soon as Marcia could slip away
from all that merry racket she flew down
to the foot of the orchard, and cast herself
into the deep grass there in the shadow
and cried to break her heart. That one
glance in Philips face, that swift instant,
had served to turn the whole earth on
pivot to another issue of life. 1t had, in
deed, held up a torch before her, it had
showed her that of which she was uncon-
scious before, and now she knew that she
loved Philip Masters, and she knew that he
loved Bessie, and the world was one dead
blank.


The hens were not fed that night, and
nobody carried the eggs in it was only
when the moon set that, her skirts dripping
with dew, Marcia stole in herself, with her
dogs, and crept away to bed.


1t was long fight that Marcia had with
her heart on that September night. She
rose early in the morning, and gave the
hens into Bridget's charge, looked into her
mothers room, and told her she was going
to see Aunt Brown; and as that good lady,
now that she could no longer whip her
children, generally allowed them their way,
no objection was made; and Marcia found
herself, after a couple.of hours, in the arms
of her old counselor and friend, to whom,
albeit she never breathed a word of her
trouble. A day of Aunt Brown, Marcia
used to say, set her up in virture for half
year, and now she took seven of them.
"Seven days counsel with an old angel
ought to make an angel of me. But nothing
will ever do that"


Yet when she went home there was some
thing different in Marcias face from any
thing that had ever been there before; and
if nobody paid enough heed to observe it,
nevertheless the fact that the hoyden girl
had vanished, and a grave and active wo-
man had taken her place-a woman who
never allowed herself to be still long enough
10 think. She asked for no more dresses !;
she never put a ribbon near her. she brush
ed the kink out of her hair as well as she
could, and said to herself that it was of no
use for her to try and look any thing but
fright, with one eye hunting up the other
the way hers was-an allusion to a slight
cast in her eye that was not all unbecoming
on the whole; of course nobody would think
VI ldlllhS III love Win OyClOps, anu Oh
course nobody could help loving such a
rose and lily piece of beauty as Bess. She
was sure, she thought, she was glad that
Bess was happy; but, for all that, she cried
sadly about it. Yet after any of these secret
crying spells she fought her battle with her
self all the more furiOusly; and although it
wrung her heart, she would insist upon
talking about Philip, and suffer Bessie to
sing his praises on every occasion that of
fered, in fear and trembling all the while
lest voice or face surrendered, and took all
his small kindnesses as a matter of course


The winter wore away at last, and Marcia
might have felt her trouble in their behalf,
her self-denial, and the money, or rather
the eggs, that she had spent, all repaid in
the glossy look of her hens, with their red
combs and their nests full of eggs. Those
who are in search of anything can always
find il and she had secured in one wav and