weeks and then back to a rot of work he cares no more for than a felon
for the treadmill, then it is rather hard to have such a hole made in
it! Day after day, as sure as the sun rises--if he does rise--of weather
as abominable as rain and wind can make it!"

"My dear boy!" said his mother without looking up.

"Oh, yes, mother! I know! You're so good you would have had Job himself
take it coolly. But I'm not like you. Only you needn't think me so
very--what you call it! It's only a breach in the laws of nature I'm
grumbling at. I don't mean anything to offend you."

"Perhaps you mean more than you think," answered his mother with a
deep-drawn breath, which, if not a sigh, was very nearly one. "I should
be far more miserable than any weather could make me, not to be able to
join in the song of the three holy children."

"I've heard you say that before, mother," said the youth, in a tone that
roused his sister's anger; for much that the mother let pass was by the
daughter for her sake resented. "But you see," he went on, "the three
holy children, as you call them, hadn't much weather of any sort where
they sung their song. Precious tired one gets of it before the choir's
through with it!"

"They would have been glad enough of some of the weather you call
beastly," said Hester, again pulling through a stiff needle, this time
without any smile, for sometimes that brother was more than she could
bear.

"Oh, I dare say! But then, you see, they knew, when they got out, they