Year: 1872

looking at Amber for the first time.


She drew her chair nearly opposite his,
as he slipped contentedly at his coffee, and
pushing back her veil, turned to him her
timid rose-hushed face, with it's smiling
mouth and soft wishful eyes.


For moment old Morris Vanstone sat
and stared at her. It seemed to him that
the dreamlike woman had stepped sud-
denly out of the gilden frame on his parlor
wall, and was sitting before him, radiant
as of old, in the warmth of winsomness of
youth and health.


"You wanted to see me? ?' he asked, at
length, coming to his senses.


eyes" said Amber, who had got used
to having people stare at her "you wanted
a young lady to read to you. came, hop
ing you might be induced to give me
trial. believe read pretty WE'LL"


"I can readily believe you do; your
voice is charming. But l am afraid l
should give you more of trial than you
can endure" he answered, smiling grimly



ogre am. The fact is, child, am not as
young as was once. There is coldness
in my bones, and | ache. all over my head
is dizzy and my eyes are giving out. !
care for me particularly, and as / never go
out or have company, my loneliness is be-
coming a torture to me. Perhaps / am an
old IDIOT but l fanced it would be pleas
ant, and make life tri1e more tolerable,
TO have a soft-voiced girl to read my papers
to me, and sing little, perhaps, some
times. Will you take off your hat and
read me an item or two from the Journal
there ? The shipping news, first, if you
please. | own a vessel or two at sea-"


Amber commenced reading, and Mr..
Vanstone fell to wiping the moisture out of
his eyes with cambric handkerchief.
around him, he leaned back in his chair
and listened. After the foreign news and
general happenings of the day, Amber read
a poem of Alice Cary's from the fourth
page a sweet simple thing, pure and fra
grant as the violent-scented breath of q
spring morning


Mr.. Vanstone made no comments, but find
ing that hour the shortest he had known
for years, he engaged Miss Gray from three
until five, every-week day afternoon, at a
price that would render it unnecessary for
her to sew steadily all the morning.


She expressed her gratitude with moist
eyes. 81 shall hardly earn such gener-
ons compensation" she said, tying lon her
hat.


Wait a bit and see, Miss Gray" said
Mr.. Vanstone, shaking a finger warningly.
81 hope shall not be brute enough to
send you to Egypt with Sam and the cook
by the way, that Sam is enough to aggra-
vate a saint-but remember, child, if do
ever snap and snarl, and refuse to be
smoothed out, say remember that it is
the coldness, and pain, and dizziness that
is grimbling and growing, and not ; for
if had prayed to Heaven, which never
did, instead of advertising i'll the Journal,
think you and no other would have been
sent in answer to my prayer"


Amber went home happier and more
hopeful than she had been for many weeks.
Slowly yet surely her difficulties seemed one
by one to be vanishing from her path. 1t
would be so easy, so delightful, to 60
daily to Mr.. Vanstone's splendid library, to
sit in the great velvet chair, restful as the
bosom of sleep, and read rare and costly
books to such an indulgent listener as she
was sure he would prove TO be. She won
dered vaguely what Maxwell Fay would
think, smiling to herself as she imagined
his expression of blank surprise, not quite
devoid of pleasure, should he walk sudden
ly into his stepfather's study and find her
there some sunny afternoon. But perhaps
she might go and come for weeks without
seeing him, as his Office was far down town,
and she had heard him say he found little
time to spend at home 1t was just bos-
sible, too, that Mr.. Vanstone did not wish
the young rhap TO know of his new whim.
So she wisely resolved to say nothing of the
affair until circumstances revealed it,


Circumstances are, as Charles Reade OBJ
serves, terrible things. Something occur
red very soon to interfere materially with
Amber's plan Of keeping her vocation
secret from her mother. She was great
on emergencies, and for few days succeed
ed very well in making some plausible ex-
cuses for going out the same hour every day.
One afternoon, however, while preparing TO
| 90. Mrs Gray saw her looking carefully