And Dawn, because she wanted to help Daniel, and also because she thoroughly enjoyed the admiration and attention she was receiving, entered into it all, and hunted out stories to read to them, and finally gave them a taste of Shakespeare, which she read with remarkable understanding and dramatic power, considering that she had never had any interpreter but herself. A new world was opened to the house of Butterworth. Even the old farmer sat open-mouthed and listened, watching the wonderful change of expression on the beautiful girlish face. There were flowers in a tumbler on the dinner-table, stiffly arranged by Daniel’s oldest sister, Rachel. Daniel wet and combed his tawny hair before he came to meals. It was unusual, and the smaller children noticed and followed suit. It was one day when Dawn sat at the table, talking and laughing and making them all forget the common-placeness of life, with her cheeks as red as the late pink aster tucked in among her curls, that Daniel’s mother noticed with a heart of satisfaction the look on her boy’s face. That Daniel should take to a girl like that was all and more than her mother heart could wish. And why not? Were not the Butterworths well off? Was not their farm the largest and most flourishing in the whole country? True, they had not painted their house in a long time, and didn’t go in much for fancy dressing, but that was easily changed; and the barns had always been kept in fine repair, which was a good test of prosperity. Thus Mrs. Butterworth meditated in the watches of the night, but she never mentioned the matter, even to the boy’s father, for John was "turrible easy upset of an idea, an’ it was just as well to let things take their own way, ’long’s it was sech a good way for once." But Dawn had no idea that any such notion had entered the good woman’s head, and enjoyed her stay at the Butterworths’ heartily, going on to the next place with regret. There were places where boarding round was not altogether agreeable; where the rooms were small and cold and had to be shared with younger members of the family; where the blankets were thin, or the feather-beds odorous; where the morning’s ham sizzling in the spider on the kitchen stove below came up through wide cracks in unappetizing smoke; where the master of the house was gruff, and her welcome was grudgingly given. Many a night she cried herself to sleep in these places, and wondered why she had been born to suffer so, and to be so lonely. The thought of Charles, and of the day of her wedding, was growing to be like a dim and misty dream. She still hugged it to her heart, as a most precious treasure, but day by day it was becoming more unreal to her.