Barbara.

[Sidenote: Midnight]

Until midnight, the girl sat at her sewing, taking the finest of
stitches in tuck and hem. The lamp burning low made her needle fly
swiftly. In her own room was an old chest nearly full of dainty garments
which she was never to wear. She had wrought miracles of embroidery upon
some of them, and others were unadorned save by tucks and lace.

When the work was finished, she folded it and laid it aside, then put
away her thimble and thread. "When the guests come to the hotel," she
thought--"ah, when they come, and buy all the things I've made the past
year, and the preserves and the candied orange peel, the rag rugs and
the quilts, then----"

[Sidenote: Dying Embers]

So Barbara fell a-dreaming, and the light of the dying embers lay
lovingly upon her face, already transfigured by tenderness into beauty
beyond words. The lamp went out and little by little the room faded into
twilight, then into night. It was quite dark when she leaned over and
picked up her crutches.

"Dear, dear father," she breathed. "He must never know!"




II