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“I’m going to holler to-night,” announced Moppet at supper, pausing in the midst of his berry-cake, by way of diversion, to lift the cat up by her tail. “I’m going to holler awful, and make you sit up and tell me about that little boy that ate the giant, and Cinderella,—how she lived in the stove-pipe,—and that man that builded his house out of a bungle of straws: and—well, there’s some more, but I don’t remember ’em just now, you know.”

“O Moppet!”

“I am,” glared Moppet over his mug. “You made me put on a clean collar. You see if I don’t holler an’ holler an’ holler an’ keep-a-hollerin’!”

Sharley’s heart sank; but she patiently cleared away her dishes, mixed her mother’s ipecac, read her father his paper, went upstairs with the children, treated Moppet with respect as to his buttons and boot-lacing, and tremblingly bided her time.

“Well,” condescended that young gentleman, before his prayers were over, “I b’lieve—give us our debts—I’ll keep that hollerin’—forever ‘n ever—Namen—till to-morrow night. I ain’t a—bit—sleepy, but—” And nobody heard anything more from Moppet.

The coast was clear now, and happy Sharley, with bright cheeks, took her little fall hat that she was trimming, and sat down on the front doorsteps; sat there to wait and watch, and hope and dream and flutter, and sat in vain. Twilight crept up the path, up to her feet, folded her in; the warm color of her plaided ribbons faded away under her eyes, and dropped from her listless fingers; with them had faded her bit of a hope for that night; Hal always came before dark.

“Who cares?” said Sharley, with a toss of her soft, brown head. Somebody did care nevertheless. Somebody winked hard as she went upstairs.

However, she could light a lamp and finish her hat. That was one comfort. It always is a comfort to finish one’s hat. Girls have forgotten graver troubles than Sharley’s in the excitement of hurried Saturday-night millinery.

A bonnet is a picture in its way, and grows up under one’s fingers with a pretty sense of artistic triumph. Besides, there is always the question: Will it be becoming? So Sharley put her lamp on a cricket, and herself on the floor, and began to sing over her work. A pretty sight it was,—the low, dark room with the heavy shadows in its corners; all the light and color drawn to a focus in the middle of it; Sharley, with her head bent—bits of silk like broken rainbows tossed about her—and that little musing smile, considering gravely, Should the white squares of the plaid turn outward? and where should she put the coral? and would it be becoming after all? A pretty, girlish sight, and you may laugh at it if you choose; but there was a prettier woman’s tenderness underlying it, just as a strain of fine, coy sadness will wind through a mazourka or a waltz. For who would see the poor little hat to-morrow at church? and would he like it? and when he came to-morrow night,—for of course he would come to-morrow night,—would he tell her so?

When everybody else was in bed and the house still, Sharley locked her door, furtively stole to the bureau-glass, shyly tied on that hat, and more shyly peeped in. A flutter of October colors and two great brown eyes looked back at her encouragingly.

“I should like to be pretty,” said Sharley, and asked the next minute to be forgiven for the vanity. “At any rate,” by way of modification, “I should like to be pretty to-morrow.”

She prayed for Halcombe Dike when she kneeled, with her face hidden in her white bed, to say “Our Father.” I believe she had prayed for him now every night for a year. Not that there was any need of it, she reasoned, for was he not a great deal better than she could ever be? Far above her; oh, as far above her as the shining of the stars was above the shining of the maple-tree; but perhaps if she prayed very hard they would give one extra, beautiful angel charge over him. Then, was it not quite right to pray for one’s old friends? Besides—besides, they had a pleasant sound, those two words: ” Our Father.”