The next day was one of the happiest Marion had ever spent. Mr. Eaton took her for a long drive to a lovely distant village that looked sleepy enough in the winter, but was a gay scene in summer, he told her, when the two large hotels that were close to the lake were filled with a gay crowd. They were both closed now, but Mr. Eaton drove to a smaller one which was always open, and there, while the fat pony rested and enjoyed his oats, they took dinner. The table was quite long and full, and from where Marion sat she could look through a little hall to the kitchen where some women were washing piles of dishes at a long table. It reminded her vividly of the time when she spent hours every day at the same kind of work.

Was it only last summer? She lifted up her hand and looked at it inside and out. It was not white yet, but the palm was growing pink and soft.

“Two cents for your thoughts,” said Mr. Eaton, smiling to see her apparent forgetfulness.

“I wasn’t thinking of any thing particular,” said Marion, starting from her reverie.

“Were you not? There was an intentness about you which gave me the impression that you were thinking out some problem.”

“I don’t know what I said that for. I was thinking of something particular; I was thinking of all the days of my life till Mrs. Abbott brought me to Coventry.”

“I should say that was a pretty long think for such a short time.”

“But, Mr. Eaton, I used to wipe dishes just as you can see those girls in there. I did it for hours every day. I think I was too ashamed for a minute to tell you that when you asked me what I was thinking of.”

Honest Marion colored as she made this confession, which Mr. Eaton took very equably, in some way giving the impression by his manner that he considered washing and wiping dishes a very natural and every-day affair.

But as they were driving home over the snow, which sparkled like diamonds under the morning sun, but took a warm, rosy tint in the sunset light, Mr. Eaton told Marion a little Persian story which showed he had been thinking of the matter.

“A king sent one of his ministers one day to carry jewels to a queen he delighted to honor. When the proud trust was accomplished the messenger walked among the courtiers with lifted head and lofty bearing, and every one strove to be noticed by a man so honored and trusted. A few days after the king sent him to clean with his own hands the steps of the market-place, where dogs and beggar-children scrambled and fought for the refuse that was thrown out, and where the long, undisturbed accumulation of dirt had made that entrance hideous. When his work was ended the man came back from the uncongenial task with as proud a step, as lofty a carriage, as serene an eye as when he returned from his errand of trust and honor. Of the sneers and jeers of the courtiers at his abasement, and their laughter at the stains and soil upon his white, gold-wrought robes, he seemed unconscious. At the king’s feet he knelt, as he had knelt the day before, and said, ‘What thou didst give me to do, my king, I did as I could.’

“‘And which service was most pleasing to thee?’ asked the king. “‘All things that are done for thee are alike pleasing to thy servant,’ was the answer.

“And the king, turning to his people, said, ‘He is greater than ye all, for his love and obedience make base services as great as royal embassies.’

“Do you understand that, Marion?” he asked, as they turned the familiar corner which brought the school, with its high fence, in sight.

“I think so,” she said, hesitatingly. “Isn’t it that if the Lord gives us a disagreeable thing to do—a duty that seems disgraceful—we should, if we love him, do it just as if it was something noble?”

“That is it, exactly, and there is no disgrace in washing dishes. It seems to me to become a noble service when the tired little hands are working to bring comfort to helpless dear ones.”

He said that very softly, looking away into the soft cloud-banks that were fast resolving themselves into the long, stratified dark lines that bridge the space from dusk to dark. He seemed almost to be talking to himself, but Marion knew well that his words were spoken to comfort her. She would gladly have said some words of thanks, but none seemed to come, not even when he lifted her out of the sleigh at the door, and told her to run in and get warm, could she express the pleasure the day had given her. But, although she did not know it, her delight showed plainly in her bright face, and in the happy sparkle of her big, honest gray eyes.

Mrs. Abbott came home the next morning and engrossed her brother so entirely that Marion would have greatly missed her companion of the last day or two if she had not had full consolation in Elfie’s society. The child’s love for her grew stronger every day, and Candace was almost jealous when her little missy refused to say her prayers with her little bowed head resting upon any one’s lap but Marion’s.