"That will clothe you,--without much fuss and feathers?"

"I have done with fuss and feathers,"--Desire said with a grave
smile, glancing at her plain white wrapper and the black shawl that
was folded around her.

"Then come where is room for you and a welcome, and do as much more
as you please, and can, for yourself, or for anybody else. I won't
give you a cent; you shall have something to do for me, if you
choose. I am an old man now, and want help. Perhaps what I want as
much as anything is what I've been all my life till lately, pretty
obstinate in doing without."

Uncle Oldways spoke short, and drew his breath in and puffed it out
between his sentences, in his bluff way; but his eyes were kind, as
he sat looking at the young girl over his hat and cane.

She thought of the still, gray parlor; of Rachel Froke and her face
of peace; and the Quaker meeting and the crumbs last year; of Uncle
Oldways' study, and his shelves rich with books; of the new
understanding that had begun between herself and him, and the faith
she had found out, down beneath his hard reserves; of the beautiful
neighborhood, Miss Craydocke's Beehive, Aunt Franks' cheery home and
the ways of it, and Hazel's runnings in and out. It seemed as if the
real things had opened for her, and a place been made among them in
which she should have "business to be," and from which her life
might make a new setting forth.

"And mamma knows?" she said, inquiringly, after that long pause.