and fancies; a little spoiled by much love; rather apt to think all lives as safe and sweet as her own; and, when want or pain appealed to her, the tender heart overflowed with a remorseful charity, which gave of its abundance recklessly. Yet, with all her human imperfections, the upright nature of the child kept her desires climbing toward the just and pure and true, as flowers struggle to the light; and the woman's soul was budding beautifully under the green leaves behind the little thorns.
At seventeen, Dr. Alec pronounced her ready for the voyage round the world, which he considered a better finishing off than any school could give her. But just then Aunt Peace began to fail, and soon slipped quietly away to rejoin the lover she had waited for so long. Youth seemed to come back in a mysterious way to touch the dead face with lost loveliness, and all the romance of her past to gather round her memory. Unlike most aged women, her friends were among the young; and, at her funeral, the gray heads gave place to the band of loving girls who made the sweet old maiden ready for her rest, bore her pall, and covered her grave with the white flowers she had never worn.
When this was over, poor Aunt Plenty seemed so lost without her life-long charge that Dr. Alec would not leave her; and Rose gladly paid the debt she owed by the tender service which comforts without words. But Aunt Plenty, having lived for others all
