The Apple-Tree Girl. George Weston

greater poet, brought up in such an incomparable environment. Yet on second thoughts I am always glad that she was a girl, because inventors and poets we have in plenty, but never before, I believe, did a girl set out on such a scale as Charlotte did to lead herself, a little Miss Moses, into the Promised Land.

      As soon as she had mastered her Third Reader she gradually developed into a bookworm, one of the most industrious little bookworms imaginable.

      "She was ten years old then," said Aunt Hepzibah, "a spindly young 'un with her hair in two pigtails, but bright as a button, even if she was so quiet. 'Pears to me there were years when I never see her unless she had a book in her hand. She seemed to live and eat and sleep with the people she read about. Times there'd be tears in her eyes, and ​times she'd burst out laughing. 'What's the matter now?' I'd ask her. 'Oh, it's so funny!' she'd say, and curl up 'round the book again as if she'd never let go."

      It was up at the old Marlin farm where Aunt Hepzibah told me these things, and, after I had gathered a few of Micah's apples, she let me look at the books which Charlotte had read. There was a set of Longfellow, and one of Dickens, and Hawthorne was there between Charles Reade and the Waverley Novels—good, old-fashioned sets of that half-morocco binding in which our grandfathers seemed to take such deep delight. It didn't require much imagination to picture Charlotte "curled up" in her chair by the window, laughing over Sam Weller, or her eyes filling with, tears as she followed the fortunes of Evangeline. And when the twilight came I think we can both imagine her laying her book aside and looking out of the window at Micah's tree … ​and the village below … and the sunset over the far-off hills … dreaming the dreams which you used to dream when you were a child, and all unconsciously preparing herself for the quest of the Promised Land.

      In short, if you had searched the country over it is doubtful if you could have found a scene—or a girl—more conducive to the growth of Romance. And as she grew older, and her dresses grew longer, and her straight lines and angles began to turn into tender young curves, she often found herself dreaming the Golden Dream of how the prince would presently come to court her.

      Charlotte finished school in her fifteenth year, the one bright star in a small, dim lot of jewels. Twelve months before her father had taken to his bed and died in the same grim way he had lived, knowing himself the last of the Marlins and never quite forgiving her because she wasn't a boy. It was nearly ​a year before they found his will, and then it was discovered that he had left Charlotte the farm, and ten thousand dollars in the bonds of a creamery company which he had formed in the hope of restoring to the village some measure of its past prosperity. After a family council following the reading of the will, it was decided that Charlotte should continue her education by going to the Penfield High School, Penfield being the nearest town and Aunt Grace living there with a daughter of Charlotte's age, who was also going to start at the high school that same year.

      "The change will do her good, poor child!" said Aunt Harriet, a stout lady with a critical eye and a deep voice.

      Charlotte was out in the hall, quietly dusting a picture which Aunt Grace was going to take away with her, but her relations didn't dream that she was so close at hand.

      "She's a nice child," said Uncle Ezra.

      ​"But," said Aunt Grace, "so old-fashioned!"

      "She's a loving little thing!" warmly cried Aunt Hepzibah. "You've no idea how I shall miss her when she's gone."

      Hearing that from her station in the hall Charlotte felt her heart go out to Aunt Hepzibah, and she was just on the point of going in to her complimentary relations when they started talking again.

      "She's a regular little old maid!" said Uncle Ezra.

      "Well, to tell you the truth, I think it's pretty lucky she's got that money," said Aunt Grace.

      "Just what I've been thinking—poor child!" said Aunt Harriet; and, dropping her voice to its deepest note, she added: "Isn't she homely!"