progress. The house was pale gray in color, and had about its little porch a mass of pink climbing roses with dark foliage and thick clusters of bloom. Before it lay a smooth lawn, and back of it a

o its inhabitants any

ose a few miles away to a low range of blue hills. A part of the land was cultivated, but there remained many stretches of woodland, especially along a wandering stream whose silver course could be followed for a long distance, and from which rose mist, now in

-stitching on the white curtains, heavy initials on the linen, and beautiful embroidery on Eleanor's clothes in the closets. In the little parlor

she looked and acted like a lady, though she was none. Thomasina Davis, whose kindly spirit made her judge her acquaintances with sympathy, said that she believed that Mrs. Bent was a good woman who had suffered cruelly. Thomasina remembered her perfectly as Margie Ginter, the daughter of the most unpleasant, sodden, law-breaking tavern-keeper Waltonville had ever had, but did not think evil of her on that account. She knew that Margie had been

called "Nellie," and with means for very simple living. Whether her income had its source in the ill-gotten gains of her father or in the property of a deceased husband, or in s

ed, no less elaborately marked. Margie had longed for constant company, and a succession of the most idle of pleasures; Mrs. Bent shrank even from the back-door calls of her neighbors. Margie had been confident, assured in all her motions, and almost impertinent in her glances at those whose disapproval she surmised; Mrs. Bent was humble, even frightened. Margie had never gone to church, but

id. Her gray eyes were singularly clear and bright; they held the glance so that her other features, beautiful as they were, became unimportant. Her other fe

l, but she had no aptitude for books even though she sat from time to time with one of Eleanor's volumes in her hand and listened for hours together while Eleanor read to her. Sometimes when her

thers spoke. Her mistakes were those of a low stratum. Falling from her pretty lips in her youth and heard by uncritical ears, they had not s

nd I thinnen it with vineg

speech, slipped from her mother's tongue. "Them there" Mrs

to Waltonville to live, and she could recall distinctly only one incident in her life before she started to the village school. Children, in

hem. "So you've come back, Margie!" was all that Eleanor could remember but the words remained in her mind. The man had laid his hand on her mother's arm, and Mrs. Bent had j

ewcomer in Waltonville, asked her her fa

I guess," said the li

her mind again, she repeated it to her mother. Mrs. Bent, whose experience had no

said she guessed he was dead, and so I

ale, so that long afterwards th

was right

blem sugges

ver away f

you as

an said, 'So yo

't ever speak to him. If he comes toward you, you run, Nellie." Then Mrs. Bent took the

in under her thick hair. A neighbor, running for the old doctor, had returned with the newcomer, Dr. Green, who had dismissed the spectators and had hur

erited errors in speech as though he could re-make her language in a morning. Her eyes closed in the middle of a sentence, and when she woke he was no longer in the room. But it seemed to her that a voice was still about, going on and on and on. Another excited voice made

the pillows, Dr. Green brought her a book.

al name," he declared.

ooked at

have been no more terrified. Her face was tear-stained, her color was gone, and one hand closed and opened constantly upon th

. First came story-books, wonder-tales, fairy-tales, "Robinson Crusoe," "Swiss Family Robin

y which was now wakening. Presently she began to ask questions and Dr. Green answered them. Curt and positive as he was with others, he never was curt with her. He sometimes examined her to see what she had retained, and smiled to himself over the success of his teachings. Eleanor had gained all unconsciously a knowledge far superior to that of Cora Scott or even to that of Richard Lister. Neither Dr. Scott nor Dr. Liste

rising to the blue hills, which rose in turn to mountains of paler blue; of the winding stream with its accompanying mists; of the journeying sun with its single moment of rest through all the year in a dee

lating about other people, even about the life so close to her, to which she was so thoroughly accustomed that its shrinking, its various and inconsistent characteristics, did not seem strange to her. In her eighth year she follo

re" was pruned out of her own speech by Dr. Green's continued admon

them there.' Dr. Green says

he little table. Her eyes looked no more wild

er how to talk! That is a dreadfu

mained until Eleanor started to school. Eleanor heard her talking to herself, heard her pacing back and fort

eir nearest neighbors that either the making of a long journey or the scaling of a sharp picket fence was a necessary preliminary to the borrowin

ple were not drawn into association by oyster suppers or similar entertainments. Nor was Mrs. Bent drawn into the company of the older women. Mrs. Scott, whose pew w

s. Bent? Young women

asked whether Cora meant to take up nursing. But Mrs. Ben

eaching,

d anything yet

s. Bent. I suppose she wil

at she had great difficulty in finding maids; that colored girls were almost worse than nobody and that white girls had wrong and proud notions. If she meant to

ne but her mother, several stories which were not without merit. One she had ventured to send away and to-day the excitement of graduation was dulled by the approach of a more important event. The editor of "Willard's Magazine" to which she had sent "Professor Ellenborough's Last Class" had writt

eclared as the embroidered Commencement dres

rightened expression. Her duckling had pro

undry very different disappointments of her own. "T

nted they should. Even now there was another happiness approaching, of which Eleanor knew nothing. G

rouble," she explained nervou

ficulties? It would be a great pity if Eleanor had to discontinue

interrupted or tried to complet

bette

a saw that her

, but she suddenly could not remember whether the i was long or short. She knew that one

ery glad t

wed on her face and sh

piano do you w

Bent, knowing now certainly

and p

s it, e

he name of the best

t out when you go to the city, the money part wil

omasina stood for a moment frowning, then bit her lip. She wondered a good deal about Mrs. Bent, and she was to wonder still more when she saw the large chec

rubber, was to be delivered while Eleanor was at Commencement. If she had dreamed of its presence, her cheeks would have be

r bonnet

men with the piano. Mrs. Bent had given explicit charges as to the time of its delivery. She was

You go quick, and I'

y wait for me

, y

ion which shone from her eyes was sufficiently intense to explain even a gr

e the horses which drew it, lumbered in from