CHAPTER III.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 428, 14 December 1889, Page 6

CHAPTER 111.

It was not very long before tho Franklins began to know their neighbours in the new street. The houses were being taken one by one until few were left empty, and Bob knew all the boys by sight and name and was deesperately iatimato with one or two. In one house there were some cousins of Mr Franklin's fellow book-keeper, which led to a pleasantacquaintanceandneiffhbourliness, and in the next house to theirs was an old gentleman and his daughter who gave music le&sons. Dolly wished to make friends of these people more than of anyone else. There was something so tasteful and pretty about their house, and they had such charming faces. The old father

looked like a soldier and hold his head proudly as he walked by, the daughter looked kind and smiling 1 as she hurried out with her music roll. Dolly was sure that she never was impatient with her little music scholars. She sometimes heard these neighbours speaking a foreign language and they were- so polite to one another. The old soldier took off his hat with a fine air when he bade anyone good morning. Dolly wished more and more that she knew them, bub she could not see how to begin, the young la/Iy was a good many years older than she. Ib was perfectly wonderful how interesting they and their house became; theirs was the most charming house of the double row, while some looked so cheap and tawdry and unclean thafc our friend could never believe that they were really all built from the same measurements and pointed the samo colour. Dolly never had cared much for many of her school lessons, but learned them because she must. Shedid care for her French lessons, however, and she liked the stories that she was just beginning to read. She could not help a little sigh when she thought that if she stopped going to school she must give them all up. As for the geometry and the next year's chemistry course, she was glad to escape the^e. She had never said a word nbout going back to school, but soon it was past the middle of August and she must lot her aunt know if uhe did not mean to come back. What would her father and mother say ? They had always said so much about Dolly having a good education, but to Dolly it appeared more and more as if she had shut her desk cover for the last time. When the evenings grew longer she would get out her book and study a little. She could help Bob too, when his school began, for out of door Bob suffered many things in the quest for book learning. She could look act osa from the kitchen window where she oftenest stood to the house of the interesting neighbours, but she did not know them yet, though the old gentleman had once taken off his hat as he openod her gato most politely. She was jusfc remembering one day that it was a good while since she had seen either the father or daughter when her mother said that the daughter must be sick ; she had not gone by tor several day.s and there had been a doctor coming at the door. ' Your father f-ays they are French people,' said Mrs Franklin, and Dolly was more interested than ever. She had come up to confer with her mother about something uncommon that was to be made lor supper. Two of Dolly's own acquaintances weie coming out to tea from town. It was such fun to have what one liked and take pride and pleasure in ifc, instead ol being at bho mercy of somebody else who I'esented a visitor and felt herself aggrieved if thei*e were anything extn to do. ' What comfort we have had this summer ! How I shall miss you, Dolly,' said the mother, and she spoke so plaintively that Dolly came very near telling her then ami there about her plans. It was not that Bob always had his favourite buns and molasseo cookies, and that Dolly knew exactly how to bake tho Sunday beans dry and sweet and brown as her father liked them, but there was a delightful sense ot comfort and friendliness all about the house ; there was no unwilling and piotesting member of the family. For the wages they«\ve,re able to pay they could not have a, well-trained able house-girl ; they had been 1 made wretched enough by the untrained, utfwilling girls who knew so little about their business and would not take the trouble to learn any more. It had been different when Mrs Franklin was well and about the house for even the moat provoking person could not help feeling the influence of her careful friendly ways as' they worked together. But the pale little mistress always said that it was a hard place for a young girl now. Not ha I'd for Dolly ! she was surprised to find how easy it was to do the work and that every day had some new interesting thing about it ; she wondered why there was no drudgery. One morning as she walked across toward the French neighbours she was tempted to go over herself to ask for the young lady. The doctor had not been there now for a day or two. To be sure they were strangers, but Dolly's warm young heart was touched when she thought that there seemed to be nobody to show a friendly interest. Late in the morning Dolly put a cup of her mother's broth and some thin oatmeal biscuits and a piece of light cake on a little waiter and started out feeling asif it were a great adventure. On her way down the yard she picked a bright pink geranium flower and two of its fresh green leaves to make the tray look pretty, and the next minute she was ringing at the neighbour's door. The old gentleman came to open it looking very old and troubled. ■ 'Will you - enter? 1 ' ,he. askvsd most politely, and Dolly _stepped~lri" blushing a good deal. ' We have much of trouble,' said the old man sadly. ' You are kind, my dear. Will you ascend the stairway ?' and Dolly went up and entered the room. There was the poor lady who had been very ill and was better now so that she had managed to sit up in bed and was trying to write some letters to her pupils. She was so glad to see her Dolly's pleasant face, and proved herself most grateful for the little luncheon on the tray ; it is needless to say that they became fast friends and that Dolly went over to spend an hour or two that very atternoon, and sent word beside to Nora, whose strong hands wore needed in the neglected kitchen. It seemed when our fiiend told her father about the French people that night, as if she had known them for weeks. ' No, mother,' said Dolly Franklin a week later, ' I am not goiug back to school, but I am going to study a great deal harder than I used to there.' Somehow the old idea of graduating with the class had faded out, for she needed to know things now that she could not learn in school. Her father had already been easily talked over to the new plan, but Mrs Franklin anxiously protested. ' I love so to be here and you need me,' said Dolly. 'It isn't as if I were going to be a teacher ; I am going to be a home girl : always, and I mean to be learning home things. You don't know how ambitious I am. This year anyway you will have to keep me, and we will have such good times this winter. Mademoiselle Trevy is going to give me French lossons ; that is, she says that I may read to her and she will help me learn to speak all she can. I shouldn't have half so good a chance at the seminary. They are so pleased because father got that translating for them to do for his establishment. Truly, I shall learn more, being with such lovely people. The old gentleman is so nice, he never grumbles or frets, bufc 1 know that it is very hard for them having to be so poor and uncertain. Oh, mother, you will like them so much. There are ever so many nice people in this street !' *If I were only well !' sighed poor Mrs Franklin. ' But perhaps you will be soon,' said Dolly in a most heartening way ; * think how much better you are than when you came here !' ' Your father says that he is going to pay you just the same that he paid Lizzie Gregg,' said Mrs Franklin, smiling again. ' He thinks it is only fair and so you will have some money that is really your own. The first of the year he will have his increase of salary and then he can give you more, but he was pleased this morning",

telling me that you bad saved so much from what it u&ed to cost him for housekeeping that he hasn't minded the high rent a bit. You ought to have heard father praise you. He said two or three times that he wished every father and mother had such a good girl ; you take more care of ub now than we do of you. 5 'Oh, no!' said Dolly, 'I work just because I love to, and you do eyervthing for me.' Then she went down to her neat little kitchen with gieab happiness in her heart* She was sure that none of the girls she knortr had mch a happy home, but after all, Dolly herself did as much as anyone to make it co, and it was Dolly herself who deserved praise that day. She was lucUy to have learned so soon that having plenty of good work and liking it is the best thing in the world Sakah Okkb Jewett.