"Dear me! another dull, rainy, tedious day!" sighed Mrs. Dinsmore the next morning, as she turned from the breakfast-table, walked to the window and looked out upon the gardens and fields where everything was dripping with wet, "will the storm never end? No hope of visitors to-day, or of setting out to see anybody. I shall be literally eaten up with ennui."
"Here's Mildred," remarked Mr. Dinsmore, "I have always found her good company."
"Humph! she has no time to waste upon me."
"I am quite at your service, Aunt," said our heroine pleasantly.
"Indeed! what's to become of your all-important studies?"
"They have already had two hours devoted to them this morning, besides two last night; so I think I have fairly earned the pleasure of your society for so much of the day as you care to have mine," returned the girl, in a sprightly tone.
Mrs. Dinsmore looked languidly surprised and pleased.
"You are an odd girl to rise so early when you might just as well indulge in a morning nap," she said.
"I don't find it difficult if I have gotten to bed in good season the night before," said Mildred gayly, "I have been trained to it from childhood; my father being a firm believer in the old adage,
"Early to bed and early to rise,