"Yes, my dear, but I know also that the Acadians are thrifty, and that the Babets will spend your gift so carefully, that it will go farther than five hundred dollars with most people. Some day we shall do more for Yvonne, but for the present she must be content with what she has." So positively did Mr. Stratford speak, that Martine, too, had to be content. She managed, however, not only to send the money that Mr. Stratford had suggested, but a box of slightly worn garments that could be adapted to the use of the little blind girl. She remembered Yvonne's love for pretty things, and what she sent had only enough of the newness worn off to enable the box to pass the watchful customs officials of Nova Scotia. Priscilla did not pretend to be as altruistic as Martine, though both professed to take Amy for their model. Yet letters between Eunice and Priscilla passed back and forth constantly, and after reading them Priscilla was apt to sigh, and fall into a brown study; for Eunice, having for the first time found a confidante of her own age, opened her heart almost too freely, and in emphasizing the disappointments of her daily life, sometimes threw a cloud over her friend. This is a mistake made by some young letter-writers. They write intensely of personal disappointments that soon pass away. Yet the letter that they send seems to give permanence to their troubles, and if the person to whom they write is sensitive, she pictures the absent one as continually unhappy. Eunice and Balfour Airton were brother and sister living with their mother in Annapolis. They had been able to make pleasanter than it might have been the stay of Mrs. Redmond and the three girls in the old town. Eunice and Priscilla had soon become warm friends, and after their comparatively short acquaintance parted almost in tears. The Airtons were descended from Tories who had gone to Nova Scotia after the Revolution, and had always been highly respected. Even before the death of Eunice's father, however, they had lost much of their property, and were under a heavy strain to make both ends meet. Balfour Airton, who was a year or two older than Martine, was working his way through college. In his vacations he served as clerk in a grocery shop. Indeed, Martine had made his acquaintance one day when lost in the fog on the North Mountain. She had been rescued by Balfour, who fortunately drove up in his grocery cart. Balfour proved a most companionable boy, and his energy and industry made a great impression on Martine, when she contrasted him with the idler college boys whom she knew.