“Get all the sweetness out of every day; live in to-day, don’t plan or hope about womanhood; God has all that in his safe hands.  Read the kind of books I have spoken of and when you read grown-up stories let some one older and wiser choose them for you.  By and by your taste will be so formed and cultivated that you will choose only the best for yourself.  I hope the Bible will spoil some other books for you.”

“I devour everything I can borrow or find anywhere.”

“You don’t eat everything you can borrow or find anywhere.  If you choose for your body, how much more ought you to choose for your mind.”

“I do get discontented sometimes and want things to happen as they do in books; something happens in every chapter in a book,” acknowledged Marjorie.

“There’s nothing said about the dull, uneventful days that come between; if the author should write only about the dull days no one would read the book.”

“It wouldn’t be like life, either,” said Marjorie, quickly, “for something does happen, sometimes nothing has happened yet to me, though.  But I suppose something will, some day.”

“Then if I should write about your thirteen years the charm would have to be all in the telling.”

“Like Hector in the Garden,” said Marjorie, brightly.  “How I do love that.  And he was only nine years old.”

“But how far we’ve gotten away from punctuation!”

Next to prayer children were Miss Prudence’s most perfect rest.  They were so utterly unconscious of what she was going through.  It seemed to Miss Prudence as if she were always going through and never getting through.

“Are you fully satisfied that punctuation has its work in the world?”

“Yes, ever so fully.  I should never get along in the Bible without it.”

“That reminds me; run upstairs and bring me my Bible and I’ll show you something.

“And, then, after that will you show me the good of remembering dates.  They are so hard to remember.  And I can’t see the good.  Do you suppose you could make it as interesting as punctuation?”

“I might try.  The idea of a little girl who finds punctuation so interesting having to resort to castle-building to make life worth living,” laughed Miss Prudence.

“Mother said to-day that she was afraid I was growing deaf, for she spoke three times before I answered; I was away off somewhere imagining I had a hundred dollars to spend, so she went down cellar for the butter herself.”

Marjorie walked away with a self-rebuked air; she did dread to pass that open sitting-room door; Uncle James had come in in his shirt sleeves, wiping his bald head with his handkerchief and was telling her grandfather that the hay was poor this year; Aunt Miranda was brushing Nettie’s hair and scolding her for having such greasy fingers; and her grandmother had a pile, such a pile of sliced apple all