AND THE MATE SHOOK HANDS WITH THORNTON.

Then a cheer went up, and the mate shook hands with Thornton. Before supper the schooner was in tow of a tug, going up the Swash Channel.

"Well, mother," said Thornton, "do you think astronomy is such a useless thing now?"

And she was obliged to admit that she had never thought of it as the foundation of navigation. Thornton is at present the assistant to the government astronomer of a European country, and is receiving a comfortable salary.

HELEN'S CHOICE.

BY ANNIE HAMILTON DONNELL.

Helen set the baby down on the floor, and the pan of clothes-pins beside her. "There, now, we'll see," she said, gayly. She got down, too, and arranged the pins in an orderly little circle astride the pan's edge. They went way round, and then Helen, with a sweep of fingers, sent them all clattering into the pan again. The baby crowed in wide-mouthed, toothless glee.

"You do it now, baby—see, just as I do," Helen said.

She sprang lightly to her feet and went back to her dishes. The water was cold, and the teakettle almost empty, and mutton-chops did make such greasy plates. But Helen splashed in cheerfully. She was thinking of Uncle 'Gene's letter on the mantel-piece, and the final decision about it that very morning over the mutton-chops. It made her sing in sudden ecstatic anticipation. What did she care about cold dish-water and uncanny dishes, when she was going to— She filled out the thought with pantomimic action, running scales up and down the edge of the sink with dripping fingers, and executing intricate tuneless measures amid dying soapsuds.

"Helen, Helen!" called a sweet plaintive voice from the bedroom.

"Yes'm." The musical "selection" came to a quick stop. Helen hurried in, wiping her hands on her apron and rescuing the baby from an ignominious descent upon her nose on the way. "What is it, motherdie? is your head worse?" she asked, anxiously. "I'm afraid it's those noisy clothes-pins."

"No, dear, but there's a draught somewhere. I can feel it on my neck. And I wish you'd rub my shoulder again. It's unusually achy this morning."

Helen found the liniment bottle, and went to work with practised, gentle touch. It was one of the dear invalid's bad days, and she had not tried to get up. Her pale face looked up into Helen's with wistful appreciation of the loving care. She was thinking of Uncle 'Gene's letter too.

The clock out in the kitchen struck eleven ponderously as Helen set the bottle away and put the screen before the window. In half an hour the primary children would be home, and close on their heels the older ones. And what hungry, hurrying-scurrying little mortals they would be!

"Dear little mother, poor little mother, I'll shut the door and keep the Arabs as still as I ever can."

Helen always called them the Arabs when she spoke of them collectively. It was a family pet name for them. The baby had toppled into the big pan, and was fast asleep when Helen went out. She picked her up and laid her tenderly beside the mother. Then with wonderful ease she flew about, finishing the dishes, setting the table for lunch, and doing three things at once with nimble dexterity. She met the Arabs at the door with hushing forefinger. They trooped in on tiptoe, sniffing anxiously for dinner smells.

"I'm awful hungry!" Archie whispered, shrilly.

"So be I—awful!" Harry echoed. "Are there sweet-potatoes, Helen?"

"I smell 'em! I smell 'em!" Molly cried, under her breath, dancing across the floor.

"'Sh! 'sh! Yes, there are sweet-potatoes, but not for Arabs with dirty faces. Come here this minute, and let me polish you up. Oh, Harry, where ever did you tear your trousers so? A great big hog tear!"

"Folks oughter not have fences with splinters to 'em, then," Harry spluttered, with his mouth full of soapy water. "I was crawlin' under to see if Pat Curran's cow chews gum. Bill Miller says so."

"Does she?" Molly asked, eagerly.

"Well, I'm not certain sure, but I think so. She wouldn't open her month more'n a crack for me to look."

"I bet she does," little Archie chimed in, "'cause I've seen her my own self. She makes her jaws go just this way—look!"

Helen smiled in her sleeve, and laid the little discussion away in her memory for "Motherdie's" delectation. The older boys arrived, and dinner was presently in animated progress, though everybody tried to keep still—and didn't. As by magic the sweet-potatoes vanished under the eager forks and spoons, and the creamy rice followed rapid suit. The Arabs were a hearty little tribe. Nothing pleased Helen more than to have them appreciate her cooking. She sighed a little now over the thought that perhaps Mahala would scorch the rice after she was gone.

"Well, I dread her!" suddenly exclaimed Roy, as if in answer to Helen's sigh.

"Who?" asked Archie, between mouthfuls.

"Mahala. She'll scold us like sixty-nine when we make tracks over her floors, and Helen never does."

"She'll wear hoops," said Molly, holding her little silver fork in reflective suspension.

"And make-b'lieve bangs."

"And cloth slippers, with 'lastics criss-cross over her ankles."

"And white stockings!"

Helen contracted her eyebrows sternly. "Stop, children!" she chided. "Mahala's a good woman from the top of her head—"

"Make-b'lieve bangs," murmured irrepressible Archie.

"—to the soles of her feet."

"Cloth slippers, you mean."

Helen's eyes tried not to twinkle. "She's as much better than I am as—as—you can think," she ended, lamely.

The Arabs laughed in derisive chorus.

"But, honest, Helen, it's goin' to be so lonesome an' poky!" Molly wailed over her empty saucer. "We sha'n't have a speck of fun till you come home again."

"A whole year!"

"Twelve months. Four times twelve's forty-eight. Forty-eight times seven's—"

"Three hundred 'n' sixty-five!" concluded Roy, scornfully. Roy was in the grammar grade, and was regarded as an oracle in arithmetic.

The baby woke up and lifted her voice hungrily, and Helen ran away to her. The busy afternoon followed the busy morning on swift wings, and it was almost supper-time before she could sit down and think a minute. Then she held Uncle 'Gene's letter in her lap and thought about that. "Let her come soon," it said, "and stay anyway a year. She has real musical talent, and Bab's Professor Grafmann will develop it if anybody can. He's a genius. Besides, we all want her, and the child must need a breathing-spell after trying so long to tame those wild Arabs. Yon can surely find somebody else to tutor them."

Yes, oh yes, there was Mahala! She was all engaged to come and do it. She was good-hearted and strong. She would be sure to treat them all well and take splendid care of Motherdie. Helen rocked back and forth contentedly. They wanted her to go—father and mother, and the Arabs would soon get used to doing without her. Dear little Arabs! She looked down at the smallest one of them, still trying to stand the clothes-pins round the edge of the big bright pan. She was improving steadily.

Let's see—to-morrow—day after—day after that. Then she was going. It would be a new world opening suddenly to her, and she shut her eyes to dream the wonderful dreams more uninterruptedly. Ever since she had drummed baby tunes on the tin cake-box, by the hour at a time, she had been growing hungrier to learn to materialize the untamed melodies that ran riot in her mind, and made her fingers tingle with impotent longing. And now it was coming—her chance! Three days away! But as the three days came and went Helen's visions grew more clouded and overcast with secret misgivings. She found herself worrying for fear Mahala would not remember some of the little trivial comforts she herself had taken such delight in