while feathery clematis was looped and festooned over the windows and
around the portraits of former teachers, which adorned the walls.

Our play was written for us by Mr. 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! Be good! There, now!"

But I was not the most unhappy girl when, just after my part in the
play was over, I heard a little movement in the audience, and saw a
stirring as of surprise at the other end of the room.

Who was that? A sweet face in a Quaker bonnet, a white kerchief folded
primly over a gown of dove-colored satin, a pure plain dress, looking
very distinguished, for all its simplicity, among the gay toilet of the
"world's people."

Surely, no--yes, it was, it could be no one but mother!

I threaded my way through the crowded aisles, gentlemen and ladies
opening a path for me, and before everybody I was clasped in her dear
arms. And there was father smiling down at me, and saying, as mother
told me, to be composed, for I was half crying, half laughing: "Of