"From Uncle Dinsmore!" Mrs. Keith exclaimed, recognizing the hand-writing at a glance.
Her husband watched her face with interest and some curiosity as she read, a slight smile on his lips and in his eyes.
She looked up presently with hers shining. "How good, how wonderfully good and kind they always are!"
"Almost too kind," he responded, his face clouding a little. "At least I wish there was no occasion for receiving such favors. I should have been tempted to decline, had I been consulted beforehand. But it would hardly do now that the goods are almost here. We could not well send them back."
"No; certainly that is not to be thought of for a moment," she said, lifting to his, eyes smiling through tears. "We must follow the Golden Rule, Stuart, and accept their kind assistance in educating our children just as we would wish them to accept ours were our situations reversed."
"Yes," he said, heaving a sigh, "doubtless you take the right view of it; but—ah! Marcia, wife, 'it is more blessed to give than to receive.'"
"It is indeed, my dear husband, and we will not refuse them that blessedness now, but receive their kindnesses in the spirit in which they are offered, hoping that we may have our turn some of these days. Shall we not?"
He gave a silent assent. "Do you not agree with me that it will be well to keep the matter a secret from the children until the boxes arrive?" he asked.
"Oh, yes, indeed! we will not let even Mildred know. It will be such a delightful surprise to her, dear child! for though she has uttered no word of complaint, I am sure it must have been a great disappointment to her that you could not furnish her with a piano this fall to enable her to keep up her music. Now she can do that and teach her sisters too."
"And her playing will be a great treat to us all," added Mr. Keith, with a smile that spoke volumes of fatherly affection and pride in his first-born.