When she went back to her room that night, the fire was gone out utterly; not even a smoke remained. She lighted her smoky little lamp--there was no gas in the third story--and looked at her watch with an amazed air; she had not imagined that it could be nearly 11 o'clock! Then she pushed the reports into a drawer and turned the key; no use to attempt reports for that evening. As she picked up her class-book, the scribbling on the fly-leaf caught her eye again. She smiled a rare, rich, happy smile; then swiftly she drew her pencil and added one more name to the line. "Marion Wilbur--Marion J. Wilbur," it read. There was just room on the line for another word; then it read--"Marion J. Wilbur Dennis!" To be sure, she took her rubber quickly from her pocket and obliterated every trace of that last. But what of it? There are words and deeds that can not so easily be obliterated; and Marion, as she laid her grateful head on her fluffy little pillow that night, was thankful it was so, and felt no desire to erase them. Desolate? Not she; God was very gracious. The brightness that she felt sure she could throw around some lives, she knew would have a reflex brightness for her. Then, queerly enough, the very next thing she thought of, was that dainty supper she planned for herself, that she could have prepared for a school-teacher, wet, hungry and tired. Why not for a school-girl? If she had no sister to do it for, why not for a daughter? "Dear little Gracie!" she said. Then she went to sleep. Meantime, during that eventful evening Ruth sat in her room, alone, busy with grave and solemn thoughts. Her father was already many miles away. He had gone to see his wife and daughter. Eurie at that same hour was bending anxiously over a sick mother, trying to catch the feebly-whispered direction, with such a heavy, heavy pain at her heart. But the same patient, wise, all-powerful Father was watching over and directing the ways of each of his four girls. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XXVI. LEARNERS. ALTHOUGH the sense of desolation was gone from Flossy Shipley, she was not without something to be troubled over. As to that, when one sets out to be troubled, one can nearly always find an excuse. Flossy lay awake over hers for hours that night. Mr. Roberts was given to keeping more proper hours than those in which party goers indulge. So it happened that the library was vacant when the family returned, the gas turned low, and the grate carefully supplied with coal to give them a warm greeting. But the easy chairs before the bright fire told no tales of all the pleasant and helpful words that had been spoken there that evening. So far as the family knew, Flossy had spent her evening in solitude. But they would come to know it; would have to be introduced to Mr. Roberts; there would have to be a prompt explanation of their interest in each other. Flossy meant to have no delays, nor chances for mistakes, this time.