"Not that, Mattie, I use that every day myself, and it was once my dear mother's. Tell your aunty, my child, that I have no prayerbook that I can possibly lend her. I am sorry.'

"You have a beautiful white prayer-book," said the child. "Aunty means that, I think."

"Tell your aunt what I say. I cannot lend her a prayerbook. One would suppose," she added to Mattie, "that she could use the book she found in the pew. A person should have Bibles and prayer-books of her own."

"But, dear Dorothy, your neighbor has nothing of her own, so far as I can see. The borrowing is endless, I wonder what she will want next."

The wonder was soon satisfied. In the twinkling of an eye, the little messenger came flying across the lawn, her dimples flashing, as she smilingly proffered a new request.

"Aunt is awfully sorry you haven't a prayer-book to oblige her with, but she'll forgive you if you'll accommodate her with a silk parasol and a little teeny-weeny bottle of violet essence."

The perfume and the parasol were despatched and Dorothy laughed as she set off to church, where she was sure of meeting Mrs. Anthony, as cool and unperturbed as if she had not carried the finer sunshade, while Dorothy was contented with the plainer one.

"Have you any paregoric?" was the question that evening, as the family sat on the veranda. "Aunty has a touch of colic."

Paregoric was of course at the lady's service.

A few days passed and Mrs. Milburn was anticipating guests, and thought she would make some peculiarly delicate cream puffs after a recipe that had been in use in her family for years. This recipe was written, and in a cookbook which Dorothy was very fond of, many of the formulas not being in print. When she looked for her book it was not to be found. On investigation, it transpired that

the maid, a former servant of Mrs. Anthony, had loaned her the book. Dorothy, indignant, went to reclaim it in person, stopping at the kitchen-door to direct Meliss to have everything ready for her baking on her return. The kitchen was in a building by itself across the yard.

"Miss Dorothy, I'm that flustrated, I don't know how to splain," said Meliss; "but fact is, Miss Hannah's done took away yo pie-board, and yo rollin'-pin, and yo flour, and yo sugar, and yo eggs. She hab friens comin' today, too."

Even a worm will turn; Dorothy rebelled. She had patiently, if not joyfully, endured the spoiling of her goods up to this point. Patience now ceased to be a virtue. With head up, and eyes lit with a steady purpose, she marched upon her pleasant enemy. She found her agreeably occupied in baking-the old New England cook-book on the table, the place redolent of delightful domesticity.

"Do, dear Mrs. Milburn," she exclaimed, "sit down and try my fresh cookies. Jean, bring Mrs. Milburn a fan and a glass of milk; I meant to finish with your things, dear, before you got round to them, but I've been hindered. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll go straight back with you and help you out with those troublesome cream-puffs Meliss said you planned to make. That'll be a real neighborly act, on my part, as I've had to hurry so, and am right tired. Besides, it will leave Miss Matty free to give the last touches to your table. You know I have friends coming, too; but they'll be here later than yours, and I shall be so much obliged if you'll let Meliss make ice cream enough for both parties, while she is about it."

Dorothy picked up her cook-book. She felt faint. Her triumphant neighbor accompanied her home. After that morning, Dorothy surrendered. So long as she lived in Florida, she made no stand whatever against the incessant borrowing of the amiable Mrs. Hannah Anthony.

TEN

THE MINISTER'S WIFE

'EN years had slipped by as a tale that is told, since Jessie Muir had been married to Ralph Donald. They had made no change in her, except as the rosebud changes to the rose. She was a tall and slender woman, gracious and stately, at the acme of distinction, now that she had entered the sunny region of the thirties. Her head was crowned with red-gold hair, which she wore in a great coil; her brown eyes were steadfast and serene; her face had the tender calm of a Madonna.

The minister was his wife's senior by twenty years. A big man, with shoulders stooping a little from bending in his study over learned books, his pursuits had left their imprint on his fine, grave countenance. He was a courtlymannered man of great personal dignity, and it was rather a trial to him to condescend to trivial things. Social calling and tea-drinking were not agreeable to him, but beside a sickbed, or in the house of mourning, he was a comfort and a tower of strength.

The parsonage was a sunny little house, gay with the patter of children's feet, and crowded with the happy cares that belong to that joyous period of married life when parents have their little ones growing up under their eyes and in their constant guardianship. Yet all was not happiness there at this time.

For some months Mrs. Donald had been aware of a smouldering trouble in the congregation. Doctor Donald was slower to perceive it. The marked absence of the young people from the mid-week meeting, the falling off in the attendance at the evening service on Sunday, and the tardy payment of the pastor's salary, were signs to have

warned a less preoccupied man, but he found every explanation for them rather than the right one-dissatisfaction with his ministry and desire for a change. The church felt unsettled and longed for another leader.

With her swifter intuitions, Jessie watched the brewing of the storm, but she said nothing to Ralph, there would be time enough when the clouds broke. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," was her motto.

"I wish, Ralph, dear," she observed one morning, as they were dressing, "that I could afford to buy cheaper clothes, mine are far too nice."

"I don't see why, Jessie," answered the husband, "your clothes suit you; and besides, as they really cost you and me nothing, they are much cheaper than stuffs you could buy. Mary's box will be here today, and you and the bairns are sure to find it packed with treasures.'

"That's just the difficulty, darling. I and my children, thanks to our wealthy kindred, are better dressed than most of our people, and it awakens envy and jealousy. If I could explain, it might be all right, yet I fancy Deacon Barnard and Mr. Squires would be incensed, if they thought the minister's family were not dressed out of the salary. The salary is not paid, as it is, till we are everywhere in debt up to our eyes; and if they knew our affairs, they are quite capable of trying to cut it down."

Doctor Donald shook his head reprovingly.

"Ah! Jessie, Jessie! sweetest of women and wives, why have you not more charity?" he said.

The good man went to his study for the few moments of private devotion, which, with him, always begun a new day; and his wife hurried forward the dressing of the children. Breakfast brought them all around the table, and just as they had finished the meal, the expressman drove up with Aunt Mary's semi-annual box-a larger box than usual this time.

"Wait till after prayers, and then daddy will open it," said the mother to the eager flock.

The box contained an outfit for every one in the household, the minister included. Other things, too, there were in plenty-soft fine towels, exquisite table linen, and beautiful delicate lingerie and chiffons for the toilet of the mistress of the manse. She knew that love had been outpoured in every well-chosen gift, and that the tailor-made gown and the dainty house-dresses would fit to a nicety, for Mary and she were of a size and shape to wear one another's clothes, but-she knew, too, that critical looks would follow her down the aisle and into the minister's pew. She knew it!

However, what difference could it make. The fatal note of faint praise had been struck in the parish. People were saying, "Doctor Donald is a good preacher, but he doesn't win the young men," and "Doctor Donald is very profound, but he preaches over people's heads," etc., etc. Once a congregation listens to this voice of the siren, 'ware shoals. Reefs are perilously near.

The church in the next street, with a new minister fresh from the seminary, furnished a lot of new ideas about Biblical interpretation, and, endowed with a good stock of youthful magnetism, was filling up fast, and their church. was being slowly depleted. A crowd in a neighboring sanctuary when one's own church is not full is a terrible strain on trustees and deacons.

Mrs. Donald, radiant as a lily in her gown of deepest wine-colored cloth, with her bonny group of children around her, sat in the minister's pew the next Sunday morning after the box had come from home, and heard her husband preach a sermon rich in spirituality and suggestiveness, from the text, "For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty." She wondered how that sermon could fall on stony ground, for she knew that the man who was preaching had come to the pulpit from an hour of prayer. Yet she felt that it was missing its mark. Never mind. God required only of a steward that he should be found faithful. Success is not his part of the enterprise.