housework, and many wholesome pleasures kept her a happy,
hearty creature, yearly growing in womanly graces, yet always
preserving the innocent freshness girls lose so soon when too early
set upon the world's stage and given a part to play.

Not a remarkably gifted girl in any way, and far from perfect; full
of all manner of youthful whims and fancies; a little spoiled by
much love; rather apt to think all lives as safe and sweet as her
own; and, when want or pain appealed to her, the tender heart
overflowed with a remorseful charity which gave of its abundance
recklessly. Yet, with all her human imperfections, the upright
nature of the child kept her desires climbing toward the just and
pure and true, as flowers struggle to the light; and the woman's
soul was budding beautifully under the green leaves behind the
little thorns.

At seventeen, Dr. Alec pronounced her ready for the voyage
around the world, which he considered a better finishing off than
any school could give her. But just then Aunt Peace began to fail
and soon slipped quietly away to rejoin the lover she had waited
for so long. Youth seemed to come back in a mysterious way to
touch the dead face with lost loveliness, and all the romance of her
past to gather around her memory. Unlike most aged women, her
friends were among the young, and at her funeral the grayheads
gave place to the band of loving girls who made the sweet old
maiden ready for her rest, bore her pall, and covered her grave
with the white flowers she had never worn.

When this was over poor Aunt Plenty seemed so lost without her
lifelong charge that Dr. Alec would not leave her, and Rose gladly