ELEN, what are you doing?" inquired Hester

Ranesford.

It was a rainy morning and the children, Hester, Herbert, Zay, and Guy, the girls, Mariah and Helen, the teacher, Clara Ranesford, and the grandmother, were all busied in manifold ways in Mrs. Hooker's chamber. It was an ideal "grandmother's room.' Mrs. Hooker had a room all her own in Westholt. Helen was frowning over the book in her hand.

"You mustn't look cross when you read the Bible, sister says so," reproved Hester.

"I am not merely reading the Bible," Helen explained; "I am reading it through.'

Clara lifted her eyes from her lapful of Hester's white dress. Mrs. Hooker smiled at Helen's tone and the frown. She had said once that she had lived so long that she had found the bright side of every sigh and frown. "I read once of a Mohammedan doctor that he had read the Koran seventy times," said Clara, making dainty stitches in the hem of the white skirt.

"The through' seems to be your difficulty," replied Mrs. Hooker.

"That's just it. Because I am so happy this summer I determined to be very good, as good as I am happy; and I began, or continued, by beginning to read the Bible through. Have you read it through,

Mariah?""

“Not all the hard, long names," replied Mariah.

Mariah was resting in a steamer-chair after two hours of dusting. She was not resting because she was weary, but because she was listening. It was unmixed pleasure to dust the rooms and all the pretty and curious contents from the first floor to the fourth.

"The lists of names is where .my conscience comes If I do not read every word I shall not be reading it through."

in.

"Have you promised anybody?" asked Herbert, a boy to whom a promise was a precious thing.

"I have promised myself," said Helen.

"What will you do to yourself if you break your word?" he continued with deep interest.

"I shall not break my word."

"Only the spirit of your word," amended her grandmother.

"I'm breaking that all to pieces this minute," laughed Helen. "I didn't make any contract with myself about the spirit. I do come to such dry places.

Of course I know they meant a great deal then, like all ancient history, but now it is nothing but statistics. Just listen.' In a resentful tone she read: “And his host and those that were numbered of them were fifty and nine thousand and three hundred.' Now what is the good of reading that? I shall not remember it ; I have forgotten it already.'

"Fifty and nine thousand and three hundred," repeated Herbert gravely.

'Why, I don't know. Let me see.

'And those that pitch by him shall be the tribe of Simeon.' Simeon's host, I suppose.'

"Simeon's host was told just where to pitch in the new country; that must have relieved them of all responsibility and have given them a confidence and security in their new home."

66

"Why, yes," exclaimed Helen in a lively voice; wasn't that splendid? If they were at Miss Carver's and didn't know where to go next, being cramped in money matters, it must have been a great relief.”

Mariah laughed. This city girl was a delicious revelation to her. She always knew what to say next. "Go on," said Mrs. Hooker.

Clara Ranesford was listening with her heart in her eyes.

"And the captain of the children of Simeon shall be Shelumiel, the son of Zurishaddai.'"

'Another thing settled for the tribe of Simeon, the headship, the human headship. We crave the guidance of a human hand, the sound and words of a human voice, some one chosen just for us, whose common sense is God's wisdom and who has an open way to God's ear; here was a fatherhood established over them, a leadership, some one to go to in an emergency- another reason for confidence and security in their new country." "New country. There is always something new ahead of us; don't you like that, Mariah? I think girls are always coming to a new country."

"And women too," said the woman who had come into a new country to find a new brother and sister. "Now how many were there?" questioned Mrs. Hooker.

"I don't know," said Helen.

"Fifty and nine thousand and three hundred," answered Herbert. "I put fifty and nine and three on

my slate."

"How did you remember thousand and hundred ? asked Clara, looking down at his slate as he sat on the matting at his feet.

"In my head," he said, looking up brightly into the most loving face that ever had bent over him.

"Not fifty and nine thousand and two hundred and ninety-nine. Nobody was forgotten and left uncounted; they were not only remembered, but numbered and recorded. Even the hairs of our head, you

know. The spot was chosen; the neighbors on each side chosen all safe and sure, because it was God's plan, his unhindered plan for them. And I think of something else. Give me your Bible, Helen.”

Mrs. Hooker seemed to have all the places she wished to find at her fingers' ends; in a moment she read : "So shall not the inheritance of the children of Israel remove from tribe to tribe: for every one of the children of Israel shall keep himself to the inheritance.of the tribe of his fathers.' I find I am getting into the marriage question without intending it; this refers to the marriage of the daughters. It is a civil law concerning property, but it has another side to it."

"Do let me see, grandmother," said Helen.

"I will read it so that we may all see the point. There was some inconvenience attending the inheritance of the daughters; if they married out of their tribe their inheritance would go out of the tribe to which it was commanded to be given, and the possessions would become rather mixed. Therefore in the preceding verse we find a command of Moses, according to the word of the Lord :

"This is the thing which the Lord doth command concerning the daughters of Zelophehad, saying, Let them marry to whom they think best; only to the family of the tribe of their father shall they marry.'"

"I don't like that law," said Mariah, bringing herself upright in the steamer-chair. "If they married