worry over the money, daughter. If maw can have you ready by day after tomorrow, I'll take you to the school, honey. I'm pretty sure you'll have grit enough to stick, once you're thar."

What Molly Cameron suffered from shyness, and strangeness and longing, nobody knows except those who, like her, have found themselves in an environment utterly different from the accustomed one, and in a situation where everything has seemed unreal. Molly's ways were uncouth. She had not been trained to use a tooth-brush, or to eat with her fork. She was not prepared to enter the lowest grade, but she could read and write, and the keys of all knowledge were therefore in her hand. Before long she had discovered the teacher she wanted to be like, and Miss Eliot became the model whom she copied, imitating almost unconsciously her gestures, her dainty neatness, and the refined enunciation and clear tones of her low, sweet voice.

At faculty meeting, when Molly Cameron had been in the school nine months, some one asked which of the three hundred pupils had made most progress since entering.

"Molly Cameron," was the answer, unhesitatingly given. "She has waked up. She is going to be brilliant; she is thorough; she has splendid capacity." Miss Eliot spoke positively.

"Yes, and she is growing very like you," another teacher remarked teasingly.

Virginia Eliot blushed. She was rather sensitive about the habit the girls had of adopting all her little ways. the president, who was wise and experienced, set her mind at rest with a wave of his courtly hand. He was a true gentleman of the old school, and a born educator.

"Nothing is so fine in education as personality," he said. "We can do nothing so good for our girls as to impress ourselves upon them. But it is a great responsibility."

Gradually Molly's very appearance changed. She had no money for the little accessories of dress that girls prize,

but clean turn-overs and cuffs cost a mere trifle, and a ribbon for the hair that is smoothly combed, may be managed, if a girl has initiative. There were opportunities to earn a little if the girls chose, and Molly was quick to avail herself of these. She helped in the kitchen, overtime. Part of her school work was there, but she gave hours for which she was paid a little. She was a very proud girl when she wrote home to her father that she had earned enough to buy her clothes for the next year.

She was walking across the campus one afternoon, near the end of the summer term, thinking happily that in a few days she would go home for vacation, and see them all again, when a telegram was put in her hand. Alarmed, her hands trembling so that she could hardly open it, she tore the envelope apart.

"Come," it said. "Mother died last night."

Miss Eliot went with her to the terminal of the railway, where a neighbor was waiting with a covered wagon and a team. There she left her. Molly had not shed a tear. The dry-eyed misery in her face touched her teacher's heart. She could not comfort her. As they parted, she said, "Molly, you must be brave. You will have the rest to comfort, my dear."

"I ought not to have left maw. If I had stayed she might be alive now." It was the old, old plaint, as old as earth itself, that love and bereavement are always making.

There was no returning to school next year. Instead, Molly tried her best to fill her mother's empty place, but it was not easy. The mother had pervaded the home, as mothers do. Her simple housewifery had absorbed her life, and no one had dreamed how it had exhausted her. When Molly had the cooking, scrubbing, sewing, washing, and all to do for the boys and her father, she found that it taxed her whole young strength to get through it. She began to grow round-shouldered and heavy-eyed. The slowly moving months dragged along. She was poring

over a Latin grammar by the light of a pine knot, one afternoon in the gathering dusk, when her father, more taciturn now than ever, came in and looked at her.

"Honey," he said, "you can pack your trunk and go to school next year, and finish."

"But no, father, I can't be spared." Yet he saw the flash, not from the fire, that illumined her face.

"Yes, you can, Molly. I'm goin' to be married."

Now she turned pale, and her face took on a resentful expression.

"I've not forgot your mother. I never shall. But you need your own life. I need a housekeeper. Martha Steele will make me a good wife, and she'll take care of the boys. You go back to school, honey."

It was a long speech for Aleck Cameron. He added to it after a moment. "Your mother had a gold watch, honey, and a black silk dress, and a little white shawl. She would have wanted you to have them. I'll put them in your trunk myself. When you are through school, you can be a lady and teach if you like, and you can help me educate the boys. Teddy is a smart little chap." Teddy was the youngest.

Several years later, a traveler passing through the Cameron Creek region saw a little church, its white spire pointing heavenward, and near it a small schoolhouse, with thrifty plants and bright vines around its door.

The hamlet that focused most of its activity around the blacksmith's shop and the store, had an air of clean prosperity formerly lacking. A definite tidiness had taken the place of dirt and disorder. The saloon had vanished.

"Seems to me," said the stranger, "there's an improvement here. You've been forging ahead.”

"Right you are," said the blacksmith. "That little girl of Aleck Cameron's, when she came home from school went straight to work. She persuaded us to build the school. Then she started a Sunday school and a singing service in

the school. On top o' that she begged us to build a church. We did. We've got a minister now, an' he preaches every Sunday. Molly Cameron, with the Lord's help," here the old fellow took off his hat, "has, to put it mildly, transmogrified this community. Yes, sir, she has."

Molly Cameron, a tall, gentle girl, was pointed out to the stranger later. He looked at her, noted the firm mouth, the womanly brow, the tender, lustrous eyes, and knew that she and others like her were quietly revolutionizing the land of their birth.

"God bless her," he said. "God help her," and rode out of the mountains. From his far-away home later, he sent an organ for Molly Cameron's church.

BREAD UPON THE WATERS

A

S far as the eye could see the world was beautiful in amber, crimson and gold. The trees were gay in their autumn dress, and the fields, resting in the soft October sunshine, had the air of tranquillity that befits nature when the harvests are ingathered and the summer's work is done. Mrs. Woolner came to her door, shading her eyes with her hand as she looked down the long, level road. She was watching for the return of her daughter Edith, who had spent the day in town. Presently Edith appeared at the corner of the road, but to her mother's surprise she was not alone. She was leading a little child. Mrs. Woolner thought at first that Edith had brought Cousin Sarah's Jenny or Cousin Marion's Tom to enjoy a week in the country, but as the two advanced nearer and reached the gate she discovered that this little stranger was not of her kindred. The child was thin, pale and poorly clothed. Her age was anywhere from seven to ten. She looked hungry, or rather starved, as if she had not had enough to eat, and she clung to Edith's hand as if she dreaded the inspection of the lady in the doorway.

"Who in the world is this, Edith?" cried the mother, in an accent half reproachful and half indignant. She felt like adding what was in her mind, "Where did you pick up this little scarecrow?" but she refrained from saying anything so uncivil. Mrs. Woolner was unlike Edith in one particular, although they had many things in common. She had never accepted Edith's views about the poor. If she could assist a poor family by a timely gift of money or of clothing she was willing to deny herself that she might render aid, but when it was a matter of seating a pauper

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