panelled loves and graces around her.

"When I got to be eighteen I thought I was old enough to branch out and
do something for myself--I've always tried to hold up my own end. My
little school went first-rate. There was only one drawback--another
school next door, full of great, rowdy boys. They would climb the fence
and make faces at my scholars; yes, and sometimes they would throw
stones. But that wasn't the worst: the other school taught book-keeping.
Now, I never was one of the kind to lag behind, and I used to lie
awake nights wondering how I could catch up with the rival institution.
Well, I hustled around, and finally I got hold of two or three children
who were old enough for accounts, and I set them to work on single entry.
I don't know whether they learned anything, but _I_ did--enough to keep
Granger's books for the first year after we started out."

Jane smiled broadly; it was useless to set a stoic face against such
confidences as these.

"We were married at the most fashionable church in town--right there in
Court-house Square; and ma gave us a reception, or something like it, in
her little front room. We weren't so very stylish ourselves, but we had
some awfully stylish neighbors--all those Terrace Row people, just around
the corner. 'We'll get there, too, some time,' I said to Granger. 'This
is going to be a big town, and we have a good show to be big people in
it. Don't let's start in life like beggars going to the back door for
cold victuals; let's march right up the front steps and ring the bell
_like_ somebody.' So, as I say, we were married at the best church in
town; we thought it safe enough to discount the future."

"Good for you!" said Jane, who was finding her true self in the thick of