it must be borne, for was it not a part of the great change that had come into her life with her first great sorrow? The shock of her father’s death had dazed her, and she had suffered in a dulled, uncomprehending way until she was aroused from her grief by the many anxieties and disappointing changes that the financial tangle of her father’s affairs had caused.

Leaving their beautiful city home, giving up the many luxuries and the pleasures to which she had been accustomed, parting from her school friends, and coming to the unknown suburban town were bitter disappointments; the one that cut the deepest was giving up college, but the hardest to bear was Dick’s accident!

The next moment the girl was hard at work picking up Lucille’s disordered room, humming cheerily as she went about her task, for, after all, her cousin was independent—she paid her board—and now they would need every penny.

A resolute will and deft fingers can accomplish much in this workaday world, and so Nathalie soon finished her new job, as she called it, and sat on the veranda watching the robins as they hopped nimbly over the lawn, ducking their heads every minute or so to reappear with fat, dangling worms in their beaks.

Their cheerful twitter, the budding leaves on trees and bushes, and the many reminders of the revival of life under the warmth and glow of the spring sunshine thrilled her with exhilaration. Her depression vanished, she felt happy again, but vaguely perhaps, scarcely comprehending that the buoyancy of youth and the joy of life were compensations that dulled the harrowing edge of grief.

With a long breath, as if to capture as much as possible of the spring balminess, Nathalie turned to see her mother seated in the low chair, with her basket of mending, wearing the same dazed, worried look on her face that had haunted the girl ever since their sorrow. She became keenly aware that her tireless mother, who had always stood ready to do the thousand and one things that were constantly calling her, was failing. Something swelled up in her throat, she fought valiantly a moment, and then jumping up, she grabbed the half-darned sock from her mother’s hand, pitched it into the basket, picked it up and carried it over to her chair.

“Now, Mumsie,” she declared in answer to her mother’s startled look, “you are not to darn any more stockings; henceforth your humble servant is to be the champion mender.” Nathalie’s cheeks flushed, for as she raised her eyes she encountered those of a young girl about her own age who was just coming out of the adjoining house.

As her neighbor saw Nathalie, she smiled a cheery good-morning, showing a row of strong, white teeth, and then strode down the walk with the light step and easy swing of the athletic girl.

“Huh! what a queer rig,” commented Lucille, with a supercilious raising of her eyebrows, as she noted that the girl wore a short brown khaki skirt over bloomers, a middy with a Turkey red tie, and a broad-brimmed hat banded with red. “Is that the Salvation Army’s summer apparel?” Then seeing that the girl carried a strong staff in her hand, she added with a giggle, “Or perhaps she is some aspiring member of the militants.”

“Why, I think the uniform—for I presume it is that—” interposed Mrs. Page, “is very attractive, and most appropriate for a Girl Pioneer.”

“Why, Mother, how do you know she is a Girl Pioneer?” questioned Nathalie with mild amazement.

“Ah, I forgot to tell you that her mother, Mrs. Dame, called the day you were out walking. She told me that Helen, her only daughter, belongs to ‘The Girl Pioneers of America.’”

“The Girl Pioneers of America!” repeated her daughter; “why, I never heard of them. Is it a patriotic society?”

“In a way I presume it is,” returned her mother, “as it is an organization which trains girls to emulate the sterling qualities of the early pioneer women.”

“I wonder what they do, and if it is anything like the Boy Scouts!” continued Nathalie interestedly.

“I think from what Mrs. Dame told me that it must be a sister society to that organization, for its object is to awaken within the girls a desire for healthy, outdoor activities, as well as a broad and useful life along many lines. I am sure in these days, when girls are so shallow and artificial-looking, and have no higher thought than getting all the pleasure they can out of life, that it is something which is sadly needed.” Mrs. Page’s tones were expressive.

“Oh, Aunt Mary,” demurred Lucille, looking up with a frown from her novel, “one would think that you expected girls to dress and act like their grandmothers. I am sure one can be young but once, and if one doesn’t have a good time then, what’s the use of living? And for putting a little color on one’s face, why, the most fashionable people do it nowadays.”

Mrs. Page’s face flushed slightly, but she replied with quiet dignity, “I am surprised, Lucille, to hear you talk that way, brought up as you have been, too. It is true,” she continued, “that there is no harm in wanting a good time—as you call it—that is youth’s privilege, and no one wishes to turn youth into age, but back of it all there should be common sense and a desire for right living. As for putting artificial color on a face that should represent the freshness and the natural bloom of youth, why, to me it is demoralizing.”

Lucille frowned impatiently and resumed her reading.

“Mrs. Dame,” continued her aunt, turning towards Nathalie, “said her daughter Helen was coming in to call on you; she will probably give you all the information you want about the new organization. I hope you will like her, dear, for she seems a pleasant, well-bred girl and surely will prove companionable to you. We might as well, all of us, try to forget our city life with its past pleasures, and see if we cannot adapt ourselves to our surroundings.”

“Indeed I will try, Mumsie,” replied Nathalie with a slight catch in her voice, as her thoughts turned back to her chums in the city, and she wondered what they would think of her humble little home. “But really, Mother,” she spoke aloud, “I think Miss Dame has an awfully bright face, and I wish she would call, for I should like to know about the Girl Pioneers.”

A few days after the finding of the bluebird’s nest, Nathalie, enlivened by the desire to investigate her surroundings, and curious for new experiences, set forth on a little exploring tour to the woods on the outskirts of the town. She had tried to induce her cousin to join her, but that young lady was absorbed in running over a new ragtime song. Her sister Dorothy, aged twelve, had also declined on the score that she had an engagement with a girl neighbor who lived in the big house down the road.

Sunshine and youth are joy-bearers, and as Nathalie felt the air in fragrant little whiffs against her cheeks, she thrilled with pleasure as she strode briskly up the hill. A moment later, however, her shining eyes shadowed, and she unconsciously shivered as she encountered a cold glance from a lady, weirdly garbed in gray, who was just passing.

The color flashed to her cheeks; she felt as if some one had slapped her as the haunting vision of that uncanny stare of aversion from two steely-gray eyes penetrated her consciousness. Tempted by curiosity she turned and watched the peculiar-looking figure as it glided with almost specter-like swiftness down the hill.

“I wonder who she is and why she gave me such a harrowing glance,” thought Nathalie. “Whew! she has frozen me stiff,” and then a laugh brightened