"It surely is different," Jane agreed as she led her friend into the comfortable front bedroom which they were to share. Then she confessed: "I do like it much more than I had supposed that I would when I first came. Honestly, Merry, I feel differently inside. When I believed that those poor little children had been driven out of their home by my temper, and might never be found, something inside of me snapped; something that had been holding me tense, I can't explain it, and I felt as though I had been set free from--well, free from myself. Self, that is it," she continued bitterly, "planning for oneself, living for oneself, living for one's selfish pleasure and comfort, slowly but surely deadens sympathy and love and understanding." Then taking from the table near the wide window a delicate miniature, Jane handed it to her companion. "That is my mother's portrait." "How beautiful she must have been." Merry glanced from the sweet pictured face to that of the girl at her side. "You are so alike. It is only the expression that is different. I am sure that anyone in sorrow would have gone to your mother for comfort." Jane nodded. "I am not like that--yet; but Dan thinks that if we choose a model and keep it ever in thought, we will grow to be like that person or ideal, and I have chosen my mother." Silently Merry kissed her friend and then replaced the miniature on the table. Jane had indeed changed that she could talk, even with her best friend, of these things of the soul. A moment later there came a jolly rapping on their closed door, and Bob called: "Come and see where I am going to hang out, or hang up rather." Merry and Jane went out on the front porch with the lad, who was brimming with enthusiasm. "Oh, aren't you afraid a bear will devour you in the night?" his sister inquired, when she saw a hammock hung between two pines. "Hope one will," Bob replied jubilantly. "What a yarn that would be to tell when I get back to college." Practical Julie was wide-eyed. "Why, Bob Starr," she exclaimed, "how could you tell about it after you were all eaten up?" "Which reminds me," Bob said irrelevantly, "of a story about the South Sea Islanders. A missionary was teaching them that they must take great care of their bodies, as they were to rise on the last day, and one native asked what would become of his poor brother who had been eaten by a tiger." "Bob, dear," Merry rebuked, "you ought not to joke about such things. It does not matter what we believe ourselves, or how outlandish we consider the beliefs of others, we ought to treat them with respect." "Yes'm," Bob pretended to be quite contrite. "I'm willing to change the subject if the next subject is something to eat."