If they
wanted to play, they sought the farmer in the fields, the good-
natured nurse, or the indulgent grandmamma--never the sad, pale
mother. If they were in trouble then they sought her.
Dora asked for work. She would have been dairy maid, house maid,
or anything else, but her father said "No." A pretty little room
was given to her, with woodbines and roses peeping in at the
window. Here for long hours every day, while the children played
in the meadows, she sat and sewed. There, too, Dora, for the
first time, learned what Ronald, far away in sunny Italy, failed
to teach her--how to think and read. Big boxes of books came
from the town of Shorebeach. Stephen Thorne spared no trouble or
expense in pleasing his daughter. Dora wondered that she had
never cared for books, now that deeper and more solemn thoughts
came to her. The pale face took a new beauty; no one could have
believed that the thoughtful woman with the sweet voice and
refined accent was the daughter of the blunt farmer Thorne and
his homely wife.
A few weeks passed, and but for the little ones Dora would have
believed the whole to have been but a long, dark dream.
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