standing on the top of the little step-ladder, she tried to move it, it proved heavier than she supposed and slipped from her grasp. In her attempt to save it she lost her balance and fell with it to the floor, striking her head on a corner of the cabinet.

The next thing that Marjorie knew she was lying in bed, feeling very weak and queer. She opened her eyes, and then shut them again suddenly very tight, and lay still for a long while, trying to remember what had happened; because she thought she had seen in that brief glance that she was back in her old room at home, and the impression was so pleasant and restful, and made her feel so happy, that she did not want to open her eyes and dispel the illusion. Then she thought she heard a clock strike—one, two three, four—her clock! she would have known that sound anywhere. She could not resist the temptation to look, and slowly unclosed one eye.

Yes, that was her very own clock that Jack had given her on the mantel-piece, there could be no mistake about that, nor about the mantel-piece either, for that matter, nor about the pictures over it, nor about the paper on the wall—both eyes were wide open now—nor about the rugs on the floor, nor the sofa, nor the chairs, nor the pretty, white bedstead. It was all a beautiful mystery, and she did not try to solve it. She simply gave a happy little sigh and fell into a deep and quiet sleep.

When she awoke again she felt better and stronger, and lay for several minutes feasting her eyes upon the familiar features of her old room at home.

Then the door opened quietly, and a sweet-faced woman in a wash-dress and white cap and apron entered.

"Oh, tell me," asked Marjorie, eagerly, "am I dreaming, or have I been dreaming? Is this really my room, and if it is, wasn't there any fire, and if there was, how—"

"There, there, my dear," answered a soft pleasant voice, "you are very wide-awake again, I am glad to see, and this is your own home, and there was a fire; and if you will lie very quiet, and not ask any more questions, you can see your brother Jack in a little while, and a little later your father, when he comes home."

"And—and are you—are you—" faltered Marjorie.

"Oh, I am Miss Farley, the hospital nurse. Now lie still, dear, and don't bother your head about anything."

"I won't," responded Marjorie, with a contented smile. "I thought maybe you were a step-mother."

In the afternoon Marjorie was so much better that Miss Farley let Jack spend quite a while by her bedside, while he told everything that had happened.

"My eye!" said he, "you must have given your head a terrible crack when you fell from the steps. I can tell you father and I and Hetty were scared. That was three weeks ago. Just think of that. You've had brain-fever, and all sorts of things. But Dr. Scott and Miss Farley pulled you through in great shape. The best thing was that father could have you put right into an ambulance and brought here. Say, what do you suppose he has been up to all these months? Why, he's been having this dear old house rebuilt just exactly as it was before the fire; and there was a lot more furniture and things saved than you and I thought, and he has had it all put back in the old places, and he has bought everything he could get exactly like what was burned, and what he couldn't buy he has had made so that you'd think it was the same identical thing. He used to come here afternoons and boss the workmen about, and in the evening he'd come here alone and arrange things in the old places. Say, isn't it just fine! and he never said a word about it, so that he could have it for a surprise for you on your birthday. It was all ready the day you got hurt, so he had you brought right here, and yesterday was your birthday, so that it came out just as he had hoped, after all."

"Where's Hetty?" asked Marjorie, after a short pause.

"Hetty? Oh, she married the milkman, and left without warning the day we moved in here," said Jack.

"Papa," said Marjorie, as she lay holding his hand as he sat beside her that afternoon, after she had thanked him for his beautiful birthday present, "papa, you're not going to bring anybody here to take mamma's place, are you?"

"No, my pet," replied Mr. Mason, as he bent and kissed her cheek. "Nobody in the world can ever do that; but nobody in the world can come so near it as her dear little daughter."

LAURIE VANE, BRAKEMAN.

BY MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL.

Mudhole Junction was a desolate place enough, especially on winter nights, when the wind roared through the mountain gorges, and an occasional fierce, despairing shriek from a passing locomotive waked the wild echoes among the granite peaks. But Blundon, the station-master, and Laurie Vane, the bright-eyed young fellow from the East, who lived in the little shanty a quarter of a mile off had a soft spot in their hearts for Mudhole Junction, and with reason. Both of them had found health and strength in the high, pure altitude, and each had also found a friend in the other. Blundon often wondered why a young fellow of nineteen should be living up there, apparently as much cut off from the human species, other than the Mudhole Junctionites, as though he belonged to another planet. But seeing the boy was perfectly correct in every way, and Blundon himself having the soul of a gentleman, and above asking questions, Laurie Vane was not bothered to give explanations.

One autumn night, about a year after Laurie's advent, he and the station-master were spending quite a hilarious evening together in the little station-house. A fire roared on the hearth, and some malodorous cheese, a plate of crackers, and a pitcher of eider were on the table. On one side of the fire sat Blundon, grizzled and round-shouldered, but with a world of good sense in his well-marked face; on the other side sat Laurie, a red fez set sideways on his curly head, and his guitar across his knees.

"Talk about your spectacular shows," said Laurie, softly thrumming "In Old Madrid," on the guitar, "I don't know anything quite up to that ten-o'clock express on a wild night like this. When she rushes out of the black mouth of the tunnel for that straight stretch of three miles down here, and flies past, hissing and screaming, with one great glaring eye blazing in the darkness, she looks more like one of the dragons of hell than anything I can imagine. It's worth more than many a show I've paid two dollars and a half to see."

Blundon smiled at this as he answered:

"And I can see it every night in the year for nothing. People call it lonesome up here, but I guess mighty few folks know how much company an old railroad man like me can get out of passing ingines and slow freights, and even out of the rails and ties. Anybody would think I was a paid section-boss the way I watch the road-bed about here."

"How long were you a railroad man?" asked Laurie, stopping in his thrumming.

"About twenty years," said Blundon. "But it was in the East, where railroading ain't the same as it is out here. I was in the caboose of a train that made two hundred and twenty miles, year in and year out, in four hours and forty minutes, including three stops. It was a solid train of Pullmans, and the road-bed was as smooth as a ballroom floor. I had an eighteen-thousand-dollar ingine—the Lively Sally—and when I pulled the throttle out she was just like a race-horse when he hears the starter shout 'Go!' I don't believe I ever could have quit the railroad business if the Lively Sally hadn't come to grief. But it wasn't when I was a-drivin' her. I was laid off sick, and they gave her to another man—a good enough fellow, but you can't learn the ways of an ingine in a day nor a week, any more than you can learn the ways of a woman in a day or a week. Sally used to get balky, once a year