store from whence it had come. She recalled their futile struggles to raise flowers and vegetables in their few square feet of unfenced yard from which all the true soil had long since been washed away. And she laughed bitterly and sobbed at the same time over their dream of a night school-night school for children whose minds and hearts and bodies were aching from the long, long day of pitiless toil!

Then she remembered those first dreamlike visits to the city after the day's work was done; but she remembered, too, that each had cost almost a day's earnings, and that they soon had to cease. The very ribbons which she and Sallie had so lightly bought after their first pay day, now came back to haunt her. If she only had the price of them now for ice for the fevered patient beyond those hot planks there!

With the thought of the sick mother and of the fearful, losing fight which she had waged, the Brier's own disappointments were suddenly swallowed up by the vast tragedy which shadowed that best of mothers.

The doctor had said that besides this fever the result of overwork there was a spot on her lungs! She must have plenty of fresh air, and eggs and milk and cream in abundance, before the spot could be cured.

The Brier let go her knees and put her thin little hands over her eyes. Was it all a dream — that little home in the country among the cool green trees with acres of plenty stretching out under the sunshine on every side with chickens and ducks and geese, and old Boss, sometimes stubborn, but always generous, lowing in the barnyard? Was it all a dream?

And was this reality? - this world where every single soul had to work from sunup to sunset, forever and ever and ever? — where long hours and poor food left the lungs. a prey to spots that only waited a chance to fasten and grow and grow and grow?

The Brier pressed her thin fingers tighter over her burning eyes. Was this reality - this world where it took every cent one could possibly make to purchase the simple clothes one needed, and coarse fare enough to make one able to work?

Oh, to dream again!

Sallie touched her on the arm. Sallie had come back from town with the medicine. The two sisters entered the sickroom together where Jim was sitting beside the patient. The younger boys slipped in from the back where they had been playing again with forbidden companions.

"I can't help it," answered Sallie, to a look from her brother. "We can't shut them up here when they've been working all day; and outside of this room they are at once in the midst of that crew.'

Jim went over to the window and stood, looking out into the night. He was thinking of the father whose hope had been to rear his boys in the country.

Suddenly, there was the sound of strange footsteps on the front porch, and the next moment two unknown ladies stood before the open door with an escort somewhere in the shadowy background. The escort bore a large basket.

Explanations were quickly and kindly made. The newcomers were a "committee" from the charity guild of

St. Andrew's. The "case" had been reported to them by the doctor.

Sallie and the Brier looked at their brother, who had turned from the window. His face was white and drawn. The man in him had been hurt to the quick.

"We are not - we are not objects of charity," he said in a low, passionate voice as he came forward.

Sallie laid her hand on his arm quickly.

Becky started to say something, but stopped with her lips apart.

There was a moment of painful silence, and then the shadowy escort came out of the background and touched the boy on the arm.

"Step outside," he said with a glance at the now stirring figure on the bed. And when they were out under the stars together, he continued,

"I see how you feel about it. We men are all that way, and it's about the best thing in us. But, suppose you let me help you a little just as man to man, you know. Let me make you a personal loan to tide you over this, and sometime you can pay me back — I'm not afraid to trust you," he answered to the sudden look the boy gave him. "Your employers report you trustworthy and industrious." He put his hand on the boy's shoulder as he spoke, and then, suddenly, the young fellow poured out his heart to him.

"I see, I see," said the stranger, when the boy had finished. "It's the old story. You were surrounded by comforts that ninety-nine out of a hundred in our cities never dream of, but you didn't value your blessings because they were not expressed in dollars and cents.

It's that way with too many who rush from the farm to the city."

"I want to go back," said the boy, passionately. “I want to go back where my mother can have the pure air to breathe. I want to go back where my sisters will not be hired 'hands' and where my brothers will not grow up the associates of these " he made a despairing gesture at the crowd that was gathered only a few feet away "I want to go back where I can be a man like my father was, and provide for my own."

"Once upon a time," said the quiet stranger, "a man with the soul of a man in him helped me out just in the nick of time. I paid him back his money, of course; but for the human kindness of the act, I am still his debtor. I want you to help me square up with him at last by letting me pass his kindness on.”

The boy silently took the hand that was held out to him. I have it from the neighbors that the young Bentons came back to the traditions of their fathers with a newer, finer courage that triumphed even over adverse seasons, and ultimately made a perfect garden spot of the little farm they had once despised.

It seems, too, that the good mother was won back to health and strength by the pure air and the good, wholesome food of the farm; and that all-the-year-round roses came and made their homes in the faces of the young people.

Only yesterday I heard a young fellow call the second of the radiant Benton girls "Becky the Blossom."

- FRANCES NIMMO GREENE.