“I am not the first fellow that has gone through this,” he comforted himself grimly.  “I will not throw it overboard; she will listen next time.”

Next time?  Ah, poor Morris, if you had known about next time, would you have spoken to-night?

“Marjorie, I have something for you, but I would rather not give it to you to-night,” he said with some confusion.

“Well,” she said, quietly, “I can wait.”

“Do you want to wait.”

“Yes.  I think I do,” she answered deliberately.

Miss Prudence’s step was at the front parlor door.

“You young folks are not observing the clock, I see.  Marjorie must study astronomy by starlight to-morrow morning, and I am going to send you upstairs, Morris.  But first, shall we have family worship, together?  I like to have a priest in my house when I can.”

She laid Marjorie’s Bible in his hand as she spoke.  He read a short Psalm, and then they knelt together.  He had grown; Marjorie felt it in every word of the simple heartfelt prayer.  He prayed like one at home with God.  One petition she long remembered:  “Lord, when thou takest anything away from us, fill us the more with thyself.”

XVIII.

ONE DAY.

“Education is the apprenticeship of life.”—­Willmott.

Marjorie did not study astronomy by starlight, but she awoke very early and tripped with bare feet over the carpet into Miss Prudence’s chamber.  Deborah kindled the wood fire early in Miss Prudence’s chamber that Prue might have a warm room to dress in.  It was rarely that Marjorie studied in the morning, the morning hours were reserved for practicing and for fun with Prue.  She said if she had guessed how delightful it was to have a little sister she should have been all her life mourning for one.  She almost envied Linnet because she had had Marjorie.

The fire was glowing in the airtight when she ran into the chamber, there was a faint light in the east, but the room was so dark that she just discerned Prue’s curls close to the dark head on the pillow and the little hand that was touching Miss Prudence’s cheek.

“This is the law of compensation,” she thought as she busied herself in dressing; “one has found a mother and the other a little girl!  It isn’t quite like the old lady who said that when she had nothing to eat she had no appetite!  I wonder if Miss Prudence has all her compensations!”

She stepped noiselessly over the stairs, opened the back parlor door, and by the dim light found a match and lighted the lamp on the centre table.