“ My favorite engraving—a picture representing two children straying near a precipice, fearing no danger, and just ready to fall, when behind them, sweeping softly down, comes their guardian angel—hung over the mantel.
How much pleasure I took in that room, in the book shelves always full, in the pretty rugs and the cool matting and the dainty drapery, all girls can imagine. It was my own Snuggery, and I kept it in the loveliest good order, as mother liked me to.
Tap, tap, tap.
"Goodness!" cried Veva, only half awake.
"What is that? Mice?" said Marjorie, timidly. ”

“ Our village of Highland, in the Ramapo, is perfectly enchanting in clear brilliant weather, and turn where you will, you catch a fine view of mountain, or valley, or brown stream, or tumbling cascade. On a snowy winter day it is divine; but in the fall, when there is mist hanging its gray pall over the landscape, or there are dark low-hanging clouds with steady pouring rain, the weather, it must be owned, is depressing in Highland. ”

“ Every twig and branch shone, and the red and yellow maple leaves, the wine-color of the oak, the burnished copper of the beech, were like jewels in the sun.
"If it were not Sunday I would dance," said Amy, subduing her steps to a sober walk as she saw approaching the majestic figure of Mrs. Cyril Bannington Barnes.
"You are late, Amy Raeburn," said this lady. "Your father went to church a half-hour ago, and the bell is tolling. Young people should cultivate a habit of being punctual. ”

“ Dean had taken that burden away because of Florrie's life which Cynthia had saved.
Under the new conditions Cynthia grew very lovely in face as well as in disposition. It came to pass that she spent fully half her time with the Deans; had all the books to read that she wanted, and saw her father and Aunt Kate so happy that she forgot the old days of worry and care, when she had sometimes felt lonely, and thought that they were cross. Half the crossness in the world comes from sorrow and anxiety, and so children should bear with tired grown people patiently. ”

“ Robert Pierce, Amy's brother, who goes to Harvard, and he brought in both our pets, and the cat and parrot, and had in ever so many hits which Bloomdale folks could enjoy, knowing all about them.
The only thing which interfered with my pleasure was that mother was not here, and I had expected her home. I nearly cried into the lemonade, and almost blistered the icing of the pound-cake with tears; but seeing grandmamma gaze at me with a whole exclamation point in her eyes, I gave myself a mental shake, and said, not aloud, but in my mind: "Don't be a baby, Milly Van Doren! A big girl like you! ”

“ Mamma's blue eyes can look as unconscious of intention as a child's when she chooses to reprove, and yet does not wish to seem censorious. Amy is fifteen, and very headstrong, as indeed we all are, but even Amy never dreams of hinting that she would like to do something else than what mamma prefers when mamma arranges things in her quiet yet masterful fashion. Dear little mamma. All her daughters except Jessie are taller than herself; but mother is queen of the Manse, nevertheless. ”

“ With Aunt Hetty at the helm, the good old servant, whose black face had beamed over my cradle fifteen years ago, and whose strong arms had come between mother and every roughness during her twenty years of housekeeping, it really looked as if I might be trusted, and as if mother need not give me so many anxious directions. Did mother think me a baby? I wondered resentfully. Father always reads my face like an open page.
"Thee may leave something to Milly's discretion, dear," he said, in his slow, stately way. ”

“ But the wolf went straight to the grandmother's house and knocked at the door.
"Who is there?" cried the grandmother.
"Little Redcap," he answered, "and I have brought you some cake and some new milk. Please open the door."
"Lift the latch," cried the poor old grandmother, feebly; "I am too weak to get up."
So the wolf lifted the latch, and the door flew open, and he fell on the grandmother and ate her up without saying one word. Then he drew on her clothes, put on her cap, lay down in her bed and drew the curtains, the old wretch that he was. ”

“ For nothing is so much prized by most girls as a room of their very own, and a middle daughter, particularly such a middle daughter as Grace Wainwright, has a claim to a foothold—a wee bit place, as the Scotch say—where she can shut herself in, and read her Bible, and say her prayers, and write her letters, and dream her dreams, with nobody by to see. ”

“ Doctor Raeburn was rising to pronounce the invocation. The church was full. Amy glanced over to the Wainwright pew, and saw Grace, and smiled. Into Amy's mind stole a text she was fond of, quite as if an angel had spoken it, and she forgot that she had been ruffled the wrong way by Mrs. Cyril Bannington Barnes. This was the text:
"Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good."
"You are a hateful, wicked girl, Amy," said Amy to herself. ”

“ There were few secrets between Wishing-Brae and the Manse, and Mrs. Wainwright had told our mother how opportunely Grace had been able to assist her father in his straits. Great was our joy.
"You must remember, dear," said mamma, when she returned from seeing Miss Gardner off, "that your purse is not exhaustless, though it is a long one for a girl. Debts have a way of eating up bank accounts; and what will you do when your money is gone if you still find that the wolf menaces the door at Wishing-Brae?" ”

“ I tiptoed over to grandmamma's mantel, and looked at her little French clock. It was late! Eight, and past, and Hetty had not called us. What could be the matter?
Down I flew to find out what ailed Aunt Hetty. She was usually an early riser.
Before I reached her room, which was on the same floor with the kitchen, I heard groans issuing from it, and Hetty's voice saying: "Dear me! Oh, dear me!" in the most despairing, agonizing tones. Hetty always makes the most of a "misery in her bones." ”

“ Amy did not know it, but it was Grace's sweet and tranquil look that had brought the text to her mind. One of the dearest things in life is that we may do good and not know that we are doing it.
When the Sunday hush fell on the house of which Mrs. Wainwright had spoken Grace came softly tapping at the door.
"Yes, dear," called her mother; "come right in."
"Mamma," said Grace, after a few minutes, "will you tell me plainly, if you don't mind, what is worrying papa? I don't mean generally, but what special trouble is on his mind to-day?" ”

“ Everybody sat down comfortably in the dining-room, while Frances and Mildred took hold and helped Amy and Laura finish the closet. Everybody meant mamma, Mildred, Frances, Elbert, Lawrence, Sammy and Jessie. Somehow, a downright rainy day in autumn, with a bit of a blaze on the hearth, makes you feel like dropping into talk and staying in one place, and discussing eventful things, such as Grace Wainwright's return, and what her effect would be on her family, and what effect they would have on her. ”

“ Vanderhoven, brought up in the purple, taught to play a little, to embroider a little, to speak a little French—to do a little of many things and nothing well—had been given the sort of education that in her day was the right of every gentleman's son, though denied the gentleman's daughter, would her life be so hard and narrow and distressful now? ”

“ I don't object to the care of china myself. It is ladies' work. It surprises me that people ever are willing to trust their delicate china to clumsy maids. I wouldn't if I had gems and gold like a princess, instead of being only the daughter of a poor country clergyman. I'd always wash my own nice dishes with my own fair hands."
"That shows your Southern breeding," said Laura. "Southern women always look after their china and do a good deal of the dainty part of the housekeeping. Mamma learned that when she was a little girl living in Richmond."
"'Tisn't only Southern breeding," said Amy. ”

“ Do not be anxious, Margaret. There is no immediate danger, but your dear mother has been more or less ailing ever since last March, and she does not get better. We fear there will have to be a surgical operation—perhaps more than one. She may have to live, as people sometimes do, for years with a knife always over her head. We want you to come home, Margaret, as soon as you can. ”

“ She was sitting softly stroking her mother's thin white hand, the mother gazing with pride and joy into the beautiful blooming face of her stranger girl, who had left her a child.
"My middle girl, my precious middle daughter," she said, her eyes filling with tears. "Miriam, Grace, and Eva, now I have you all about me, my three girls. I am a happy woman, Gracie."
"Hallo!" came up the stairs; "Burden's waiting to be paid. He says it's a dollar and a quarter. Who's got the money? There never is any money in this house." ”

“ Bradamante had a cousin named Astulf, who finally by a series of events became the owner of the winged steed, and on this animal he made the queerest trip ever heard of, a journey to the Mountains of the Moon. The Hippogrif soared up and up, and up, till tall palms looked like bunches of fern beneath him, and he penetrated belts of thick white clouds, and finally drew his bridle rein on summits laid out in lovely gardens, where flowers and fruit abounded, and the climate was soft and balmy as that of June. ”

“ Mother always insists that a good cook should get all her materials together before she begins her work.
The way is to think in the first place of every ingredient and utensil needed, then to set the sugar, flour, spice, salt, lard, butter, milk, eggs, cream, molasses, flavoring, sieves, spoons, egg-beaters, cups, strainers, rolling-pins, and pans, in a convenient spot, so that you do not have to stop at some important step in the process, while you go to hunt for a necessary thing which has disappeared or been forgotten. ”

“ Don't get mad, Frank."
"Does your mother know it's to decorate the soldiers' graves that we want the flowers, and that Squire Eliot won't be home till next year, and there are hundreds 'n hundreds of flowers fading and wasting and dying on his lawn and garden, and furthermore that he'd like the fellows to decorate the cemetery with his flowers? Does she know that, I say?" and the blue-eyed lad gesticulated fiercely.
"All is," replied Harry, firmly, "that you boys can go ahead if you like, but mother won't let me, and you must count me out." ”

“ Mrs. Dean meditated. She did not quite like to ask this child to wear a borrowed dress, and she felt that Florrie needed to take a lesson in politeness. Drawing the latter aside, she said, "My darling, I am sorry you should treat my little friend rudely; you have hardly spoken to her."
"I can't help it, mamma. She isn't one of the set we go with. A little common thing like that! See what shoes she has on. And her hands are so red and coarse! They look as if she washed dishes for a living."
"Something very like it is the case, I'm afraid, Florrie dear. I fear she has a very dull time at home. ”

“ When I reached home in time for our one o'clock dinner, I found Great-aunt Jessamine and grandmamma both waiting for me, and the former, who was a jolly little old lady, was quite delighted over the Bloomdale girls and their housekeeping.
"All is," she said, "will those Downings do as well when there are no other girls to make them think the work is play?"
"Oh!" answered grandmamma, "I never trouble my head about what folks will do in the future. I have enough to do looking after what they do in the present. Alice here gets along very well all by herself a great part of the time. ”

“ It was a long though narrow valley shut in between two lofty mountain ridges, and in it were stored away all the things which men lose or waste on earth. Here they found an infinite number of lovers' sighs, beyond which lay the useless moments lost in folly and crime, and the long wasted leisure of ignorant and idle men. Next came the vain desires and foolish wishes that can never take effect, and these were heaped together in such quantities that they blocked up the greater part of the valley. ”

“ His son Absalom was renowned for his beauty and for his wickedness, while Solomon became famous, and so continues to this day as the wisest among men, a man rich, far-sighted and exalted, who reigned long in Jerusalem after the death of David, his father, who passed away in a good old age. Wonderful lives are these to read and to think of, full of meaning for every one of us. And many, many years after both these men and their successors were gone there came to our earth, One born of a Virgin, who traced His mortal lineage back to David of Bethlehem, and who brought goodwill and peace to men. ”

“ And we pounced upon her in a body and devoured her with kisses, the sweet little mother.
"Papa," Amy proceeded, when order had been restored, "why not take us when you go to interview the judge? Then he can behold his future schoolma'ams, arrange terms, and settle the thing at once. I presume Grace is anxious as I am to begin her career, now that it looms up before her. I am in the mood of the youth who bore through snow and ice the banner with the strange device, 'Excelsior.'"
"In the mean time, good people," said Frances, appearing in the doorway, "luncheon is served." ”

“ Pierce to Amy, "is the crowning test of housewifery. A lady is a loaf-giver, don't you know?"
"When Jeanie shall present me with a perfect loaf of bread, I'll present her with a five-dollar gold piece," said Jeanie's father.
"I don't want Veva meddling in the kitchen," observed Mrs. Fay, with emphasis. "The maids are vexatious enough, and the cook cross enough as it is. If ever Veva learns breadmaking, it must be outside of this house." ”

“ I'll introduce you, my dear," he said, "when you give your first recital, and that will make it all right in the eyes of Highland."
"Thank you, doctor," said Grace. "I would rather have your sanction than anything else in the world, except papa's approval."
"Why don't your King's Daughters give Grace a boom? You are always getting up private theatricals, and this is just the right time."
"Lawrence Raeburn you are a trump!" said Amy, flying round to her brother and giving him a hug. "We'll propose it at the first meeting of the Ten, and it'll be carried by acclamation." ”

“ If there were any beggars here, Veva would empty that little silken purse of hers every time she saw them, but the club has forbidden her to spoil Dot and Dimpsie in that way. And she is too much of a lady to outshine the rest of us.
Mother and father both believe in keeping an exact account of expenses. Money is a great trust, and we must use it with care. Economy, which some people suppose to be another name for saving, is a beautiful picture word which signifies to guide the house. Mother thinks economy cannot be learned in a day. ”