Continued from December issue.

CHAPTER III.

Louisa

In an early morning of February in the following winter, the two girls were sitting together in Alicia's room. It was a pretty room, the prevailing color primrose yellow, but Louisa thought that the brown sweater thrown over a chair should have been in a drawer, and that the floor was hardly the place for her friend's work-basket.

"I wanted to bring the letter over to you last night, it's so exciting," said Alicia, "but I couldn't because some boring old callers came."

"Oh, Alicia," said Louisa reprovingly. "Wasn't it the minister?"

"Yes and his sister. They talked two hours about Roman excavations. I saw Father yawn three times."

Louisa had her own opinion about that, but she kept silence.

least I

"Here's the letter,-at thought it was here," said Alicia, rummaging recklessly in her top drawer. "I guess I left it downstairs. Wait a minute."

She soon returned, an elegant looking missive in her hand. The paper The paper was thick and white, with monogram in gold.

"It's from Elsie Redpath."

Alicia read the letter aloud rapidly. It contained an invitation to both girls to visit Elsie for the next fortnight in New York, and Mr. Redpath wished to make all expenses of the trip his care.

"Oh, won't it be too delicious!" cried Alicia.

"We can't decide right off so," said Louisa. "Perhaps Mother can't spare me." She had, however, fully determined to go. It certainly would be

the height of folly to miss such an opportunity.

"You just must go! It won't be for long. Mother said right off I could. Can't Miss Hadley come over and stay with your mother?"

"Perhaps so," replied Louisa. I'll ask her. She would be a good one." "Yes, she would. She's always so careful about things. Oh, Louisa, we'll have the time of our lives! only my clothes will do!" her face sobering suddenly.

If

"I shall fix over my best green," said Louisa thoughtfully, "and it's time I had a new hat anyway. I'll buy it in New York as soon as we're there. My old dark blue will do to travel in."

"I didn't get much this winter," said Alicia, "Father seemed so hard up. Anyway, Elsie won't care a rap. Hurrah for New York!" And she began to waltz about the room.

When Louisa reached home she joined her mother to talk the matter over. Mrs. Acton at once saw the advantages to her daughter of this little peep into the world, and agreed, too, that it would be a sensible plan to ask Miss Hadley to take Louisa's place during the visit. As Mrs. Dale was equally alive to what the New York stay would mean for Alicia, the girls entered with zest into their preparations, after each sending an enthusiastic acceptance to Elsie Redpath.

Then, the day before they were to start, Mrs. Gray fell severely ill with inflammatory rheumatism. Every attempt to secure a nurse proved unavailing, and Mr. Gray, in his alarm and anxiety, appealed finally to Louisa, as the elder of the two girls. Louisa saw him coming up the path, and went to the door.

"Good morning, Mr. Gray," she said, "I hope Aunt Helen is better?"

Her little straw suitcase, in which she tossed the few necessary changes would not have passed an examination on skilful packing, but everything needful was there, even to three long white aprons.

"I'll send Maggie over every day, to see if there's anything you want,' said her mother, "and you can send back by her anything for the wash."

Louisa didn't accept easily her friend's decision, and was astonished that Alicia, usually so ready to follow her lead could be so "obstinate."

"You're acting very foolishly," she said. "Rheumatism isn't a dangerous thing. And of course a doctor, if he is any good at all, must be able to find a nurse, besides," as Alicia was about to speak, "this is a very unusual opportunity for us. It is our duty to broaden ourselves when

we can.

"I'd rather stay narrow, when it's a question of Aunt Helen's comfort," said Alicia. "Give my love to Elsie, and tell her I'm sorry."

"She'll think it queer," said Louisa. "It isn't likely she'll invite you again." Alicia looked troubled. She was fond of Elsie. But she didn't waver. "Alicia's changing, I think," said Louisa later to her mother. She's growing self-willed and opinionated. I'm sorry, chiefly for her own sake."

CHAPTER IV ALICIA

Mrs. Gray knew that her husband had gone to get Louisa to come, if possible, for some days. No sooner had he left the house, however, than she began nervously to wish that she had not consented to his doing so. An exaggerated vision arose in her mind of the kind of nurse Louisa

would be. "She'd have a time set by the clock for me to turn over in bed," she said to herself, "and she'd put my books in an even pile, so I'd want to fire them across the room.".

She tossed and turned; and when, at last, Mr. Gray came upstairs, stepping with gingerly tread lest he wake her, she could hardly wait for him to appear in the doorway.

"Did νου get her?" she asked quickly. "Yes, my dear," replied her husband in a satisfied tone. "She is more than willing to come, more than willing," he repeated. Mrs. Gray half groaned, and turned. her head to the wall.

"I thought it was your own wish,' said Mr. Gray, slightly crestfallen. "Alicia's young to be sure, but,—”

Alicia!" came in a different voice from the bed.

"Yes, Oh, we did think first of Louisa, I know. She would have been glad to come, but she goes to New York just at this time. On a visit to a young friend, I believe."

"So it's Alicia! Charles, tell Bridget to get out the new quilt, and put it on the blue-room bed. And Charles," as he was about to obey, "take the little stand from the corner here, and put it in the blue room. Let me seeWell, go along, and I'll think what

next."

Charles went along. He was accustomed to follow any suggestion of his wife's, and his mind was immensely relieved to find that the younger of the two girls was evidently more to her mind than the probably more competent elder.

Alicia came. Why she was just such a success was a mystery to the doctor, to Aunt Lizzie (to whom they wrote in her distant home), and to the neighbors in general. She made her first entrance by tripping and fallroom. She ing into the invalid's

promptly forgot two of a list of directions given her by the doctor. And a curious slow-passing neighbor distinctly heard her laugh. But Mrs. Gray declared herself perfectly suited.

"She's good and wholesome to look at," she said to her husband. "And she isn't nailed to her own way.

She's first-rate company, and makes me forget my pain half the time. Yes, Charles, whoever asks, you tell them Alicia's a nurse worth having." "But she forgot Dr. Bond's mixture." said Mr. Gray.

"Drat the mixture!" said his wife. "It's bitter as gall. I'm only too thankful I missed one dose of it." Alicia won high praise from Bridg

et.

"She never asks for wan thing for herself," was her verdict. "She'd take her coffee cold, and any scrap I put before her. But she'll not take take her coffee cold! It's a trate to do for her, if 'tis only to see the purty smile av her!"

If Alicia felt a little disconsolate when she read the letters that came from Louisa, with their accounts of gaieties and sight-seeing, she was careful to shake off any least trace of such regrets before she regained her charge. It was always a bright-faced nurse that sat beside Mrs. Gray, and read to her the long letters from Robert to his mother, or from a magazine or book. When Mrs. Gray's pain was severe, Alicia's touch was gentleness itself, and before long the whole household relied on her explicitly. "Ask Alicia," "Alicia

make

will know," were words often heard. When the girl felt sure that Mrs. Gray was asleep and free from pain, she would change her dress of white linen for one of dark woolen, get into a heavy cloak, slip out of the house, and on snowshoes her way to the veery's nest. She seldom stayed more than ten or fifteen minutes, but it rested her to be in the different sort of quiet one finds in the woods,--a quiet thrilling with strong growing life, and devoid of fussy insignificant noises.

Here she brought her own letters from Robert to read over. He was a faithful correspondent, and in the half-year's letters to her had said more of his serious interests than he ever had when they were together. Alicia

thought herself a poor letter-writer, but in her few letters she accomplished what Louisa's carefully composed letters did not,-she made herself present; each expression was her very own. The brief letter might be misspelled-it often was-but it breathed the charm of naturalness and brought to a rather homesick young man the very air of his native mountains.

There was more than one reason for her not staying long by the veery's nest. The weather was now intensely cold. Louisa had barely left for New York, when there came a sudden drop of many degrees in the mercury, The cold relentlessly increased, and was followed by a heavy snow-fall. Outlying Outlying roads became. most of them, impassable, and the nurse finally secured, who was to take Alicia's place that the girl might have the tail-end of the New York visit, was hopelessly snowbound in a remote town still further north.

Alicia's disappointment was lessened by the evident relief of Mrs. Gray in keeping her on. keeping her on. Mr. Gray, too, in somewhat cumbersome language, expressed his gratification.

Alicia's job called for patience, in spite of her whole-hearted gladness to be of help. Mrs. Gray had hardly in all her life known what actual illness was, and the pain she now had to endure at times severe-made her often irritable and unlike her usually well-balanced self. Mr. Gray was kindness itself, but his efforts were somewhat clumsy and wanting in He was apt to appear at inopportune moments. Alicia, well, as Bridget put it to Timothy, the manof-all-work. ""Tis the swateness of her!" Alicia's sunshine held out for the family through what would otherwise have been a totally dreary period.

tact.

Toward the middle of the second week, Mrs. Gray began to gain more decidedly. The pain no longer was severe, and she could sleep through