But that thought Sarah would not admit for the fragment of a second to her burdened mind. She wiped away her tears once more, and then she almost succeeded in smiling. The black clouds in the west were parting. Here and there a star peeped through. She knew a few of them by name. There was Venus,--Sarah, whose English was none of the best, would have called it "Wenus,"--her father had loved it. Often he had watched it from this window. Perhaps William saw it, too, in that mysterious night in which he lived. Ah, what tales there would be to tell when William came home! Her father's death had meant the giving up of all Sarah's dreams and hopes. Three years before, they had driven one day to a neighboring town. Drives were not frequent in that busy household. Sarah remembered yet how fine Dan and Bill had looked in their newly blackened harness, and how proud she had felt, sitting with her father on the front seat. They had seen many wonderful things: a paint-mill, a low, long building, covered, inside and out, with thick layers of red powder; and the ore mines, great holes in the yellow soil, where the ore needed only to be dug out from the surface; and they had stopped to watch a cast at a blast-furnace. But most wonderful of all was the "Normal." Sarah had seen the slender tower of the main building against the sky. "What is then that?" she had asked. "That is the Normal, where William went to school." "Ach, yes, of course!" cried Sarah. All the delightful things in the world were connected with William. Her father looked down at the sparkling eyes in the eager little face. He had had little education himself, but he knew its value. "Would you like, then, to come here to school?" Sarah's face grew a deep crimson. She looked at the trees, the wide lawns, the young people at play in the tennis-courts. "I? To school? Here?" "Of course. Wouldn't you like to be such a teacher like Miss Miflin?" Sarah's face grew almost white. It was as though he had said, "Would you like to be President of the United States?" "_I!_ Like Miss Miflin! Ach, pop, do you surely mean it? But I am too dumb." Her father laughed. "No, you are not dumb. If you are good, and if you study, you dare come here." Ah, but how could one study with a sick mother, and then a sick father and a baby to look after, and twins like Ellen Louisa and Louisa Ellen to bring up, and-- Sarah went slowly back to the kitchen. It was like going into church, all was so still and solemn. Albert and the twins slept, Aunt 'Liza and Aunt Mena had taken their places on the opposite side of the table from Uncle Daniel and Jacob Kalb. "Come, come," cried Uncle Daniel impatiently. He did not like black-eyed little Sarah. She looked too much like her father, whom his sister had married against his will. "We must get this fixed up. Sit down, once."