"It'll do him just as much good to read that, as that silly stuff at the beginning. Phil and I always read things we weren't supposed to have reached." "But for him--" Mrs. Sturgis murmured; "you and Phil were different, Ken. Oh, well,--" For Kirk had turned back several broad pages, and began: "There came a soldier marching along the highroad--one, two! one, two!..." Little by little the March twilight settled deeper over the room. There was only a flicker on the brass andirons, a blur of pale blossoms where the potted azalea stood. The rain drummed steadily, and as steadily came the gentle modulations of Kirk's voice, as the tale of "The Tinder-Box" progressed. It was the first time that he had ever read aloud anything so ambitious, and his hearers sat listening with some emotion--his mother filled with thankfulness that he had at last the key to a vast world which he now might open at a touch; Ken, with a sort of half-amazed pride in the achievements of a little brother who was surmounting such an obstacle. Felicia sat gazing across the dim room. "He's reading us a story!" she thought, over and over; "Kirk's reading to us, without very many mistakes!" She reflected that the book, for her, might as well be written in Sanskrit. "I ought to know something about it," she mused; "enough to help him! It's selfish and stupid not to! I'll ask Miss Bolton." The soldier had gone only as far as the second dog's treasure-room, when Maggie came to the door to say that supper was ready. From between the dining-room curtains came the soft glow of the candles and the inviting clink of dishes. "'He threw--away all the copper--money he had, and filled his--knapsack with silver,'" Kirk finished in a hurry, and shut the book with a bang. "I wouldn't have done that," he said, as Felicia took the hand he held out for some one to take; "I should think all the money he could possibly get would have been useful." "You've said it!" Ken laughed. "Yes," Mrs. Sturgis murmured with a sigh, "all the money one can get _is_ useful. You read it very beautifully, darling--thank you." She kissed his forehead, and took her place at the head of the table, where the candles lit her gentle face and her brown eyes--filled now, with a sudden brimming tenderness. CHAPTER II HAVOC The town ran, in its lower part, to the grimy water-front, where there was ever a noise of the unloading of ships, the shouts of teamsters, and the clatter of dray-horses' big hoofs on bare cobblestones. Ken liked to walk there, even on such a dreary March day as this, when the horses splashed through puddles, and the funnels of the steamers dripped sootily black. He had left Felicia in the garden, investigating the first promise of green under the leaf-coverlet of the perennial bed. Kirk was with her, questing joyously down the brick path, and breathing the warm, wet smell of the waking earth.