fair chance to grow. It seemed to her an interminable dull tragedy;
this graceful, eager, black-eyed woman, spending what to the girl was
literally a lifetime, in the conscientious performance of duties she did
not love.

She knew her mother's idea of duty, knew the clear head, the steady
will, the active intelligence holding her relentlessly to the task; the
chafe and fret of seeing her husband constantly attempting against her
judgment, and failing for lack of the help he scorned. Young as she
was, she realized that the nervous breakdown of these later years was
wholly due to that common misery of "the square man in the round hole."

She folded her finished sheet in accurate lines and laid it away--taking
her mother's also. "Now you sit still for once, Mother dear, read or
lie down. Don't you stir till supper's ready."

And from pantry to table she stepped, swiftly and lightly, setting out
what was needed, greased her pans and set them before her, and proceeded
to make biscuit.

Her mother watched her admiringly. "How easy you do it!" she said. "I
never could make bread without getting flour all over me. You don't
spill a speck!"

Diantha smiled. "I ought to do it easily by this time. Father's got to
have hot bread for supper--or thinks he has!--and I've made 'em--every
night when I was at home for this ten years back!"

"I guess you have," said Mrs. Bell proudly. "You were only eleven when
you made your first batch. I can remember just as well! I had one of