And now they must hasten to the dear old father who had braved the perils of the wintry deep that he might bring Elsie's one and only treasure to her husband, little recking that, far away from kith and kin, he should lay his old bones in a foreign land. If sorrow had had power to steal the roses from Jeanie's cheek, joy planted new and fairer ones there; and never did a brighter light dance in the blue eyes than when, a little later, with a soft sound of rapture, she flung her arms around Sandy's neck, crying, "My ain, ain gran'daddie, ye s'all never, never leave me ony mair!" Jeanie's presence did more to set old Sandy on his feet again than all the physic in the world; so in a few days the happy trio were whirling off to the mining village in Maryland, where they are living and prospering to-day.
LADY PRIMROSE.
BY FLETCHER READE.
CHAPTER I.
"As it fell upon a day
In the merry month of May."
It was a long, long time ago that it happened—so long, in fact, that most people have forgotten all about it—but once upon a time, as the old, old stories tell, there lived in the village of Hollowbush an old woman and a little girl.
And other people lived there too; but that does not concern us. The old woman, plain and brown and wrinkled though she was, was the wisest and kindest old lady anywhere to be found, which is reason enough for her being in the story; and as for the little girl, you have already guessed that she is Lady Primrose; but how she came to be Lady Primrose is what makes the story.
The village of Hollowbush was as pretty a place as you would care to see—a quiet, quaint little town, where the grass ran up and down the streets in a wild, free way it had, to which no one thought of objecting; but as year after year went by, and the little girl who lived there grew older without, unfortunately, growing wiser, she became so tired of Hollowbush and its grass-grown streets that she was almost ready to run away.
"If I were only rich," she was constantly saying to herself, "then I might go where I chose."