Of course the boys upset it, but as there was company nothing was said, and Ralph devoured his supper with the appetite of a hungry boy, while watching Merry eat bread and cream out of an old-fashioned silver porringer, and thinking it the sweetest sight he ever beheld.
Then the young people gathered about the table, full of the new plans, and the elders listened as they rested after the week's work.

A pleasant evening, for they all liked Ralph, but as the parents watched Merry sitting among the great lads like a little queen among her subjects, half unconscious as yet of the power in her hands, they nodded to one another, and then shook their heads as if they said,-- "I'm afraid the time is coming, mother." "No danger as long as she don't know it, father." At nine the boys went off to the barn, the farmer to wind up the eight-day clock, and the housewife to see how the baked beans and Indian pudding for to-morrow were getting on in the oven.

Ralph took up his hat to go, saying as he looked at the shade on the tall student lamp,-- "What a good light that gives! I can see it as I go home every night, and it burns up here like a beacon.

I always look for it, and it hardly ever fails to be burning.

Sort of cheers up the way, you know, when I'm tired or low in my mind." "Then I'm very glad I got it.