13.  In the light of the cold, keen dawn, they reached a snug farmhouse, a mile from the Brandywine.  The men lifted Gilbert from the saddle, and would have carried him immediately into the house, but he first leaned upon Roger’s neck, took the faithful creature’s head in his arms, and kissed it.

Definitions.—­2.  Pros’pect, ground or reason for hoping, antic-ipation. 5.  Breast’ed (pro. brest’ed), opposed courageously. 6.  Numb, without the power of feeling or motion.  Re-laxed’, loosened. 12.  E-mo’tion, excited feeling, agitation.

LXXXVII.  THE BEST CAPITAL (245)

Louisa May Alcott was born at Germantown, Pa., in 1833, and, among other works, wrote many beautiful stories for children.  During the Civil War she was a hospital nurse at Washington.  The following selection is adapted from “Little Men.”  She died in 1888.

1.  One would have said that modest John Brooke, in his busy, quiet, humble life, had had little time to make friends; but now they seemed to start up everywhere,—­old and young, rich and poor, high and low; for all unconsciously his influence had made itself widely felt, his virtues were remembered, and his hidden charities rose up to bless him.

2.  The group about his coffin was a far more eloquent eulogy than any that man could utter.  There were the rich men whom he had served faithfully for years; the poor old women whom he cherished with his little store, in memory of his mother; the wife to whom he had given such happiness that death could not mar it utterly; the brothers and sisters in whose hearts he had made a place forever; the little son and daughter who already felt the loss of his strong arm and tender voice; the young children, sobbing for their kindest playmate, and the tall lads, watching with softened faces a scene which they never could forget.

3.  That evening, as the Plumfield boys sat on the steps, as usual, in the mild September moonlight, they naturally fell to talking of the event of the day.

Emil began by breaking out in his impetuous way, “Uncle Fritz is the wisest, and Uncle Laurie the jolliest, but Uncle John was the best; and I’d rather be like him than any man I ever saw.”

4.  “So would I. Did you hear what those gentlemen said to Grandpa to-day?  I would like to have that said of me when I was dead;” and Franz felt with regret that he had not appreciated Uncle John enough.

“What did they say?” asked Jack, who had been much impressed by the scenes of the day.

5.  “Why, one of the partners of Mr. Laurence, where Uncle John has been ever so long, was saying that he was conscientious almost to a fault as a business man, and above reproach in all things.  Another gentleman said no money could repay the fidelity and honesty with which Uncle John had served him, and then Grandpa told them the best of all.

6.  “Uncle John once had a place in the office of a man who cheated, and when this man wanted uncle to help him do it, uncle wouldn’t, though he was offered a big salary.  The man was angry, and said, ’You will never get on in business with such strict principles;’ and uncle answered back, ’I never will try to get on without them,’ and left the place for a much harder and poorer one.”