It was a simultaneous exclamation from Aunt Patty and Cynthia. They both looked blank, and Cynthia dropped her rolling-pin and sat down in the nearest chair, as if she felt suddenly weak. Ida laughed. She looked wonderfully radiant and happy. "Calm yourselves," she said. "I have other plans in my head. Listen to this." She tossed Aunt Stina's letter into the wood-box back of the stove, and opened the other--a business document--which announced that Miss Ida Worley had been appointed a teacher in the grammar school at Bell's Falls at a salary of seven hundred and fifty dollars per annum, her duties to begin the following Monday. "And as Bell's Falls is only fifteen miles off, I can come home every Friday night," said Ida. "How'd you ever get the place?" asked Cynthia, when she and Aunt Patty had exhausted their vocabulary of exclamations of delight and astonishment. "Through Doctor Stone's influence. He knows all three of the trustees. Dear old man! He was so ready to help me!" "Aunt Stina will be dreadfully disappointed that she isn't to have you again, Ida." "Perhaps so, just at first. But she will hire a companion--some one who will suit her much better than I. She won't approve of my teaching, and will wonder that I prefer it to a life of idleness in her house. But I am longing to feel that I am of some use in the world--not a drone in the hive." "You dear child!" said Aunt Patty. "Your kind and unselfish act in helping that poor fever-stricken woman has brought a great reward. Had you passed her by you would never have known Doctor Stone, and wouldn't now have a chance to show what a busy bee you can become." "My first month's salary shall be spent in fitting out my dear Aunt Patty with everything she needs in the way of comfortable dress," said Ida, with her arms around her aunt's waist, "and the month after that every cent shall go to Cynthia. Oh, I can hardly wait to begin! How thankful I am that I came here last June. It was the beginning of a new life. And to think how I mourned and made myself utterly miserable because I couldn't go abroad with Aunt Stina!" Cynthia's plain little face fairly beamed with joy. "And now Aunt Stina is never to have you again," she said. "Never again! I belong now to you and Aunt Patty." THE END. THE CAPTURE OF THE SLAVER. BY AN OLD SHIPMASTER. I had run away to sea, and was serving as cabin-boy on the _Flying Scud_. But by the time we got to Cienfuegos, Cuba, I had suffered so much from ill-treatment, that I resolved to desert before the ship sailed. I had an afternoon ashore, and while amusing myself with the sights I went into a restaurant for dinner.