Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and the First Christmas of New England

f a possible tragedy. When the concert of life is playing the gayest and airiest music

sy, and noisy, were all under the one roof-tree. There was energy, youth, intelligence, beauty, a pair of lovers on the eve of betrothal-just in that misty,

distance from her chamber window. His face was like a landscape over which a thunder-cloud has d

life-purpose. He had just come to a decision to sacrifice his hopes of education, his man's ambition, his love, h

of incorruptible probity, of scrupulous honor, of an exacting conscientiousness, and of a sincere piety. But he had begun life with nothing; his whole standing in the world had been gained inch by inch by the most unremitting economy and self-denial, and h

mallest item of expense was an intolerable burden, and the very daily bread of life was full of bitterness; and when these paroxysms were upon him, one of the heaviest of his burdens was the support of his son in college. It was true that he was proud of his son's talents

n promised to him for the winter term, had been taken away by a little maneuver of local politics and given to another, thus leaving him without resource. This disappointment, coming just at the time

ghts in the blackness of darkness. "We shall all go to the poorhouse togeth

se serene eyes that had looked through so man

o pay, you are perfectly reckless of expense. Nothing would do bu

ught you yourself w

it. I'd no business to have listened to you a

sold for a little more than that of any other hand, and she had calculated all the returns so exactly that she felt sure that the interest money for that year was safe. She had seen her husband pass through this nervous crisis many times before, and she had learned to be blamed in silence, for she was

would have seemed to be sinking under his feet. Meanwhile she was to him that kind of relief which we derive from a person to whom we may say everything without a fear of its harming them. He felt quite sure that, say what he would, Mary would always be hopeful and courageous; and he felt some secret idea that his own gloomy forebodings were of service in restricting and sobering what seemed to him her too sanguine na

re in the son to bring them into collision with each other. James had the same nervously anxious nature, the same int

implied a censure on his son, as being willing to accept a life of scholarly ease

to pay all; you shall not suffer; interest and princip

! You'll be a poor man as long a

tells th

sn't my fault that

e with the vacation before you and nothing to do! There's your mother, she's working herself

h! Please don't say any more. You'l

mes turned from his father he had taken a resolution that convulsed him with pain; his strong arms quivered with the represse

comment. "Book l'arnin' hain't spiled

something, and I'll use the

He had driven economy to the most stringent extremes; he had avoided the intimacy of his class fellows, lest he should be drawn into needless expenses; he had borne with shabby clothing and mean fare among better dressed and richer associates, and been willing to bear it. He had studi

rd mate. Come along, and you can go right up, and your college mathematics will be all the

ld she keep faith with an adventurer gone for an indefinite quest? The desponding, self-distrusting side of his nature said, "No. Why should she?" Then, to go was to give up Diana-to make up his mind to have her belong to some other. Then there was his mother. An unutterable reverential pathos always to him encircled the idea of his mother. Her life to him seemed a hard one. From the outside, as he viewed it, it was all self-sacrifice and renunciatio

iling in his mind when he came in fr