losing her thimble under the lilac bush. It took her half an hour to find the thimble; but Susy, gentle as a dove, was determined, nevertheless, and find the thimble in the grass Maudie did, before she was permitted to play again.

"Who is your fwend?" Susie was holding the little maid in her lap, and forgiving her for her naughtiness. A big tear quivered on the golden-brown lashes.

"My fwend is Fanny. She's so good, you'd love her." "I love you, Maud, even when you are bad," said Susy, in whose heart an unsuspected fount of mother-love had suddenly gushed forth with sweet waters.

But she made an errand to the Industrial School before many days, and brought home another orphan girl, little dark-eyed Fanny. Her neighbors were aghast, and John's folks deeply resentful, but Susy kept right on.

She grew younger and prettier as the children, who called her "Auntie," stole farther and farther into her heart. And, as they worked in their little gardens, and after awhile strolled to school with luncheons packed in dinner-pails, she forgot her old desire to have a house like a shrine. The house was still sweet and clean, but it had now become a home, where children romped and played and love reigned

supreme.

"A gentleman's at the door, Auntie," said Maudie one afternoon; "he asked for you." Susy stepped into the passage. At the door stood a stranger, tall, bronzed, smiling. He held out his hand.

"Do you know me, Susy?" "Arthur Ellis !

Arthur! Where did you come from,

after all these years?"

"From Seattle, Susy. I've come for you; to take you back with me. You said 'No,' when we were girl and boy, and I was such a fool I accepted it. But you are not to say 'No' again. This time, it must be 'Yes.' Susy, will you marry me?"

This was poured out in a breathless torrent as they stood

by the door. The man's arms went around the woman. He stooped and kissed her lips. She did not withhold them. Tears rushed to her eyes as he still held her closely.

"Oh, Arthur, I did love you," she stammered, "but you would whittle chips in the best room, and I couldn't stand it. And you played tricks on me, and tied my braids to the back of a chair."

"I'm ashamed of myself, Susy, for I'm an untidy chap yet. But I've reformed. I'll do nothing you don't like. Marry me next week, dear, and come away into the big world. Come to Seattle, Susy. You'll feel alive there."

She had drawn him into the sitting-room. The two children were scampering about under the apple-trees. He looked into Susy's eyes with a glance of perfect satisfaction."

"You are prettier than you were twenty years ago, Susy," he said. "Let me kiss you, darling. I've starved for you so long."

Again he embraced her, till blushing, he drew herself away. What had become of the years? They were gone, and these two were young again.

"What shall I do with the children?" she said musingly, after awhile.

The man looked puzzled.

"What children?"

"My two little daughters; adopted, you know."

"You took them because you were so lonely, dear?"

"I took them because I found a house with nothing in it but chairs and tables could not feed an immortal soul. Arthur, are you a Christian man? You know the old trouble between us, because you neglected the church, and were rude to the minister." She spoke wistfully.

"I am not the man I would like to be," said Arthur Ellis; "but in the years I have been working alone, in mines, in forests, I have learned to know the Lord, and I am his servant. I'm glad you have the little adopted girls,

dear, for I have two little lads, children of my partner, who died, and I'm their guardian. We'll have a house full of bairns, and plenty to do, and, thank God! plenty to do it with."

So Susy's stumbling-stone proved a bridge, over which she stepped to happiness and joy. She married her old sweetheart, and went West with him; but she did not at once take the little girls. They were left for a year in the little home, a maiden cousin taking charge of it and them. Later, the little girls went West, where the adopted brothers awaited them.

"Strange," said Mrs. Deacon Wentworth to her good husband, "are the ways of Providence. Strange and mysterious, indeed. Who'd ever have fancied that Susy Prentiss and Arthur Ellis would have found each other after so many years."

The two were sitting at the breakfast-table as they chatted.

"They missed a good deal of sunshine by not marrying when we did; but it's better to find happiness late than not at all."

"Yes, dear, better late than never," agreed Mrs. Wentworth, handing a cup of coffee across the table.

R

ST. VALENTINE'S EVE

UTH LINDSAY was a painter of miniatures. In her girlhood she had studied under good teachers at home, and had been given the advantage of several years abroad, where she had taken lessons from great masters. For a while, after her return to America, success had attended her efforts. There was a passing wave of interest in miniatures, and hers for a short period commanded good prices from a certain fashionable set. These things ebb and flow like the tide. Ruth had reached forty, which is not an advanced age, but which marks a transition period from youth, with shadows of middle life creeping softly toward it, not threateningly, but lovingly, when one happens to have health and strength and a full purse. But Ruth Lindsay was fragile. She had many days when she was laid aside by the headaches that were a legacy from those who had gone before her, and, furthermore, her pocket-book was generally thin, and the demands upon it increased with her birthdays. At present it seemed as though very few people wanted to pay for miniatures, photography having reached a point of excellence and artistic beauty so eminent that the camera supplanted the brush.

Ruth and her father were alone in the world. Her father was a splendid looking old gentleman, of a constitution so robust that he never felt an ache or a pain, and of a temperament so sensitive that it could not endure rough contacts in business, or permit its owner to engage in anything practical. Mr. Lindsay supposed himself to be an author, and to pursue lines of scholarly investigation. He spent, like Mr. Casaubon in Middlemarch, hours among his books, and every Monday and every Wednesday, carefully dressed, and carrying a gold-headed cane, he emerged from the modest apartment which Ruth and he called home, that he might consult volumes of reference in a great

library. On those days it was his custom to lunch elegantly in a well-known restaurant, and he never dreamed that his daughter Ruth, who supported him, usually fasted on those days, doing her little best to make up for his extravagance. Whatever else occurred, Mr. Lindsay was well dressed when he went out. He was wont to say that it did not do for a man to look shabby as he grew old. "Nobody notices you, my dear," he would remark to Ruth, "so long as you have the air of a gentlewoman."

Fortunately for herself, Ruth Lindsay had a buoyant spirit and was not easily depressed. She abhorred debt, and worked hard to keep the wolf from the door. Latterly, she had painted menu cards, and had illustrated with dainty pictures in the margin some holiday books, that were selected by a wealthy friend as gifts for a favorite granddaughter. She was brave and cheery, and her blue eyes looked defiance at poverty. One day, however, she was aware of a blur before her eyes, and she was frightened when the air around grew darkened by strange, black, feathery shapes that floated uneasily in the field of vision. The oculist she consulted prescribed glasses and rest. On the latter he insisted, and rest was for Ruth the one impossibility. What should she do?

On the eve of St. Valentine's Day, two gay little neighbors came flying up to her studio, their eyes shining, their dimples dancing, their cheeks rose-red with excitement. They were hurrying to the postoffice to send their valentines, and they expected heaps of treasures in return when the morrow should come. "Oh, Miss Ruth," they said, "isn't Valentine's Day the greatest fun? Isn't it perfectly gorgeous? Don't you love it?"

"Well," answered Ruth to the last question, “I did love it when I was sixteen, and I agree with you that life is full of fun and delight in the teens. It is ages, though, since anybody sent me a valentine, or I sent one to anybody. I remember," she went on, musingly, "that Duncan Stewart