'Mary, we want to ask a favour.'

'And what is that, Miss May?'

'We want to learn how to cook. Mother said perhaps if we were very good, you would give us a lesson.'

So said little May, the youngest of the Trevor tribe of boys and girls, who were now at home for the holidays.

'Well, if the mistress is willing, I am,' replied the good-natured cook. 'Do the young gentlemen want to learn, too?'

The two boys shook their heads. 'No, no,' cried Guy, the elder; 'too many cooks spoil the broth!'

Mary soon set the girls to work, with the utmost patience and good-humour, giving her lesson meanwhile. The boys, in spite of the laughing remarks which they occasionally made, were immensely interested; as for the girls, they threw themselves into their task with such a zest that Mary declared, in time, they would all make first-rate cooks.

'I don't believe any one but you, Mary, would have such patience,' said Ellen, one of the maids, as she passed through the kitchen.

'Oh, Mary will have her reward one day,' laughed Elsie; 'you see if she doesn't, Ellen.'

But little did Elsie think, as she said these words, of what Mary's reward would be.

No one looking into the cook's sunny face would dream that she had any sorrow hidden in her heart; but it was so. Her dearly loved and only brother had gone away to sea, many years before, and from that day to this Mary had never heard a word of him. But so unselfish was she, that she would not allow her trouble to shadow any one else around her.

In the afternoon the girls wended their way to the neat little cottage-home where dwelt Mrs. Jones and her children. She was the widow of a sailor, and so poor that but for Mrs. Trevor's kindness she would often have been in great straits. Her face looked quite bright as she welcomed her visitors, and showed them into the back room where she had been sitting at needlework.

'We have brought you some pastry of our own making,' said Elsie, 'and some other things besides.'

'Then it's very, very kind of you, Miss,' was the grateful reply. 'I am well off just now, for I have a lodger for a few days, who pays me wonderfully well. He is a sailor man—a captain, I believe—and he says he once knew my husband. The children are in with him now,' went on the woman; 'he has taken a wonderful fancy to them all.'

Then said little May, who did not know what bashfulness was, 'I wish I might go and see him, too. I should so like to know if he has ever seen the island where Robinson Crusoe was wrecked.'

A peal of laughter greeted May's remark, but nevertheless her request was granted.

Five minutes later she was chatting to the 'sailor man' as if she had known him all her life.

'What do you think we have been doing this morning?' said little May, after busily talking about a host of other things.

'I'm sure I don't know, little Missie,' replied the man.

'You would never guess, I am sure—we have been making pastry!'

'Pastry! have you, indeed?' said the pleasant-faced man, with a smile; 'well, now, that's a thing I could never make.'

'We couldn't have done it by ourselves; Mary helped us, you see,' said truthful May.

'And who is Mary, little Missie, if I may ask?'

'Mary is our cook,' replied the child; 'she is so kind and good-natured. Her real name is Mary Greymore, and—— '

To May's surprise the sailor started to his feet.

'What!' cried he. 'Greymore, did you say?'

'Yes,' said May, looking startled. 'What's the matter, sailor man?'

'Nothing is the matter,' was the reply, given in a voice deep with feeling; 'only, if what you say is true, I have found the sister I have been looking for these many months past.'

Mary's joy at seeing her long-lost brother again was almost beyond words; as for the Trevor family, they were scarcely less excited than she.

It was found that James Greymore had been such a wanderer that none of his sister's letters had ever reached him, and, as Mary herself had long left her native village, the two had been quite out of touch with one another.

'It is all through that lesson in pastry-making,' said Kitty, 'that Mary found her brother. May, very likely, but for that, wouldn't have spoken of Mary at all.'

'Then I was right,' laughed Elsie. 'I said Mary would have her reward, and so she has, and well she deserves it, too.'

M. I. H.