This was Bee’s thought the night before she read Mrs. Morton’s letter inviting her to Bronson, and when she read it the thought resolved itself into a fixed purpose, the first step of which was to take Trixey to her mother. Poor little Trixey, who turned so white, but did not at first shed a tear, when told of her baby brother’s death. Half an hour later, however, Beatrice found her in the garden, with her face in the grass, sobbing as if her heart would break for the dead brother, of whom she said to Bee, “I wouldn’t feel so bad to have him with Jesus, only I shaked him once hard, when he was so cross and heavy, and I was so tired, and he wouldn’t go to sleep. I’se so sorry. Will God let me go to Heaven some day and see him, and tell him I’se sorry?” As well as she could, Beatrice comforted and reassured the weeping child, whose conscientiousness and sweet faith and trust in God were leading her into ways she had only known in theory, but which were beginning to be very pleasant to her feet, as she learned each day some new lesson from the trusting child. It was near the latter part of June, the season of roses, and pinks, and water lilies in New England, when she at last took Trixey to the old brown house under the shadow of the apple trees, where the mountain air was filled with perfume from the flowers blossoming on the borders by the door, and where Bunchie played in the soft summer sunshine under the snow-ball tree by the well. It was such a plain, but pleasant old house, with the rafters overhead showing in the kitchen, and the great box-like beams in the corners of the room,—for the old house claimed to have seen a hundred years, and to have heard the guns of the Revolution. But it was very cheerful and home-like, and neat as soap and sand and Aunt Nancy’s hands could make it. Aunt Nancy was the first to welcome Miss Belknap, looking a little askance at her style and manners, and wondering how they could ever entertain so fine a lady even for a few hours. Mrs. Morton was sick with a headache, and Mrs. Brown was still down with nervous prostration, having stoutly resisted all Mrs. Julia Hayden’s advice about making an effort, and hints which sometimes amounted to assertions that she could get up if she liked, and would diet on oatmeal and barley. In her last letter to Mrs. Morton, Beatrice had declined Mrs. Hayden’s offer, and said she should feel more independent at the hotel for the short time she should remain in Bronson, but within half an hour after her arrival at the parsonage, Mrs. Hayden was there also, in her handsome carriage, drawn by her shining black horses, and driven by a shining black coachman, in gloves and brass buttons, and she insisted so hard upon Beatrice stopping with her, that the latter finally accepted the invitation, but said she would remain for the day where she was and see if she could not be of some comfort and help to Mrs. Morton, who seemed better from the moment she