Rainbow Valley

hiver. "It's raining. I do hate a rainy Sunda

pily, trying to pull her drowsy wits together wi

ndidly. "Mary Vance says most Sunday

n Mary Vance," said Una remorsefull

the holes in my heels. Mary darned them all up before she went away, but they're as bad as ever now. Una, get up. I can't get the breakfast alone. Oh, dear. I wish father an

r?" asked Una, wh

lythe. But she says not-she never had a doctor in her life and she isn't going to

indignantly. "I'm sure Dr. B

again after breakfast. We'd better not mak

ould have known just what the precise temperature of flannels for a misery back should be. Mary knew everything. They knew

y," and which was tolerably certain to attack her at the most inconvenient times. She could not rise from her bed, any movement causing agony. A doctor she flatly refused to have. Faith and Una cooked the meals and waited on her.

nk goodness, John isn't here. There's a plenty o' cold biled

. The first day it had been too thin. The next day so thick tha

When I have a house of my own I'm NEVER go

Una. "Children have to have porridge

. "Here, Una, you stir it while I set the table. If I leave it for a minute the

ely be many out. Just see how it's pouring. And when there's no pr

ll Carl,"

dripping stockings and boots and had sat out the evening in them. He could not eat any breakfast and Faith made him go back to bed again. She and Una left the

nybody at the Methodist Sun

Sunday School on rainy Sundays than the Presbyterians. But there's no preaching

learned from Mary Vance. Faith swept the floor after a fashion and

Blythe children don't know what ditto is. And we NEVER have any pudding. Nan says Susan

finger. "I like being myself. It's more interesting. Jessie Drew is as good

y Vance says so. She says peopl

d an ins

th us. We'll have it all lovely and clean when father comes home, just like it was when Mary went away. ANY ONE can sweep and dust and wash windo

red with enthusiasm. "Oh, Faith, it will be sple

over to-morrow," said Faith. "If it doe

any idea how sick the boy really was; a watchful mother would have had a doctor without delay; but there was no mother, and poor little Carl, with his sore throat and aching head an

the rain. It was a peerless day for house-cl

wouldn't do to meddle with the study, and it doesn't matter muc

as gaily draped with rugs. An orgy of sweeping followed, with an attempt at dusting on Una's part, while Faith washed the

she said. "Mrs. Elliott's and Susa

I've used, and that's the main thing. Now, it's past eleven, so I'll wipe up this mess on the floor and we'll go outside. You du

d shaking rugs, was real fun. To be sure, Elder Abraham Clow and his wife, driving p

ble sight?" said El

adn't seen it with my own eyes," said

urteen years previously. But it hurt her that Minnie and Adella Clow did not wave back. Faith liked Minnie and Adella. Next to the Blythes, they were her best friends in school and she always helped Adella with her sums. This was gratitude for you. Her friend

t till school opens and Adella wants me to show her how to do her sums! We'll get square then. Come on, let's put the things back in. I'm tired to deat

up a new story-book Di Blythe had lent her and was lost to the world until sunset. Una took a cup of rank tea up to Carl but found him asleep; so she curled herself up on

t believe it at first. Miranda Drew brought the story home from the Methodist Sunday School this afterno

?" asked

pair. "When Elder Abraham went home from the church-he had stayed behind to straighten out the library books-he saw them shak

graveyard while the Methodist Sunday School was going on. The only household which remained in blissful ignorance of the terrible thing was the manse itself; on what Faith and Una fondly believed to be Tuesday it rained again; for the nex

th, "and the ditto is done. If Aunt Marth

d there's the codfish Mary dried," said

" laughed Faith.

arl was well and Aunt Martha's misery left her as suddenly as it had come; the butcher called at the manse and chased famine away. To crown all, the Blythes returned home, and that evening they and the manse childre