saw the woman on the bed turn her head and hold out her hand with the
old groping uncertainty of the blind.

"Margaret! It is Margaret, isn't it?"

Days afterward, when the weary, painracked body of the little mother was
forever at rest, Margaret lifted her head from her lover's shoulder,
where she had been sobbing out her grief.

"Ned, I can't be thankful enough," she cried, "that we kept it from
Mother to the end. It's my only comfort. She didn't know."

"And I'm sure she would wish that thought to be a comfort to you, dear,"
said the doctor gently. "I am sure she would."




Phineas and the Motor Car



Phineas used to wonder, sometimes, just when it was that he began to
court Diantha Bowman, the rosy-cheeked, golden-haired idol of his
boyhood. Diantha's cheeks were not rosy now, and her hair was more
silver than gold, but she was not yet his wife.

And he had tried so hard to win her! Year after year the rosiest apples
from his orchard and the choicest honey from his apiary had found their
way to Diantha's table; and year after year the county fair and the