She stood at her bedroom window before going downstairs to take up the burden of a new day. She was just seventeen, but they did not keep any account of anniversaries at Hickory Farm. The sun had given her a loving glance as he lifted his bright old face above the horizon, but her father was too busy and careworn to remember, and, since her mother had gone away, there was no one else. She had read of the birthdays of other girls, full of strange, sweet surprises, and tender thoughts—but those were girls with mothers. A smile like a stray beam of sunshine drifted over her troubled young face, at the She heard her father now putting on the heavy pots of water, and then watched him cross the chip-yard to the barn. How bent and old he looked. Did he ever repent of his step? she wondered. Life could not be much to him any more than it was to her, and he had known her mother! Oh! why could he not have waited? She would soon have been old enough to keep house for him. The minister had spoken the day before ‘Help me git dressed, P’liney,’ demanded Lemuel, her youngest step-brother, ‘Come and get your face washed, Lemuel. Now don’t wiggle. You know you’ve got to say your prayers before you can go down.’ ‘Can’t be bovvered,’ retorted that worthy, as he squirmed into his jacket like an eel, and darted past her. ‘I’m as hungry as Wobinson Crusoe, an’ I’m goin’ to tell mar how you’re loiterin’.’ She followed him sadly. She had forgotten to say her own. ‘Fifteen minutes late,’ said Mrs Harding severely, as she entered the kitchen. ‘You’ll hev to be extry spry to make up. There’s pertaters to be fried, an’ the ‘Here, Leander, go and call your father, or you’ll be late for school again, an’ your teacher’ll be sending in more complaints. ‘Bout all them teachers is good for anyway—settin’ like ladies twiddling at the leaves of a book, an’ thinkin’ themselves somethin’ fine because they know a few words of Latin, an’ can figure with an x. Algebry is all very fine in its way, but I guess plain arithmetic is good enough for most folks. It’s all I was brought up on, Pauline smiled to herself, as she cut generous slices of pumpkin pie to go with the doughnuts and bread and butter in the different dinner pails. That was just what tired her; being ‘on a level with the majority.’ The long morning wore itself away. Pauline toiled bravely over the endless array of pinafores which the youthful Hardings managed to make unpresentable in a week. ‘Monotony even in gingham!’ she murmured; for Polly’s were all of pink check, Lemuel’s blue, and Leander’s a dull brown. ‘Saves sortin’,’ had been the brief response, when she had suggested varying the colours in order to cultivate the Æsthetic instinct in the wearers. Her step-mother turned on her a look of withering scorn. ‘If your hifalutin’ people mean to say that if I don’t get papering to suit their notions, I will make my boys thieves an’ liars, then it’s well for us the walls is covered with sensible green paint that’ll wash. To-morrow is killing time, an’ next week we must try out the tallow. You can be as Æsthetic as you’re a mind to with the head-cheese and candles.’ Pauline never attempted after that to elevate the moral tone of her step-brothers. Her father came in at supper-time with a letter. He handed it over to her as she sat beside him. ‘It’s from your uncle Robert, my dear, ‘Well, I hope they’re not comin’ trailin’ down here with their city airs,’ said Mrs Harding shortly. ‘I’ve got enough people under my feet as it is.’ ‘You needn’t worry, mother, I don’t think Sleepy Hollow would suit Robert’s family—they’re pretty lively, I take it, and up with the times. They’d find us small potatoes not worth the hoeing.’ He sighed as he spoke. Did he remember how Pauline’s mother had drooped and died from this very dulness? Was he glad to have her child escape? ‘Well, I don’t see how there’s any other way for them to get acquainted,’ retorted his wife. ‘Pawliney can’t be spared to go trapesing up to Boston. Her head’s as full of nonsense now as an egg is of meat, an’ she wouldn’t know ‘But I guess we’ll have to spare Pauline,’ said Mr Harding. ‘She has been a good girl, and she deserves a holiday.’ He patted Pauline’s hand kindly. ‘Oh, of course!’ sniffed Mrs Harding in high dudgeon; ‘some folks must always have what they cry for. I can be kep’ awake nights with the baby, and work like a slave in the day time, but that doesn’t signify as long as Pawliney gets to her grand relations.’ ‘Well, well, wife,’ said Mr Harding soothingly, ‘things won’t be as bad as you think for. You can get Martha Spriggs to help with the chores, and the children will soon be older. Young folks Pauline turned on him a face so radiant that he was satisfied, and the rest of the meal was taken in silence. Mrs Harding knew when her husband made up his mind about a thing she could not change him, so she said no more, but Pauline felt she was very angry. As for herself, she seemed to walk on air. At last, after all these years, something had happened! She stepped about the dim kitchen exultantly. Could this be the same girl who had found life intolerable only two hours before? Now the Aladdin wand of kindly fortune had opened before her dazzled eyes a mine of golden possibilities. At last she would have a chance to breathe and live. She arranged When the chores were done, she caught up the fretful Polly and carried her upstairs, saying the magic name over softly to herself. She even found it easy to be patient with Lemuel as he put her through her nightly torture before he fell into the arms of Morpheus. She did not mind much if Polly was wakeful—she knew she should never close her eyes all night. The soft spring air floated in through the open window, and she heard the birds twitter and the frogs peep: she |