home, in spite of the bad roads and he broken weather. There was more to come than the young people, for he girls had persuaded their father to get a piano to set in the best parlour, and to commission their music teacher to choose it, because hey had gone so far back in their music last holiday that it had taken them all the first quarter to make it up; and besides, as Amy was fond of music, Allan had urged the purchase on her account. He was anxious to make her new life as pleasant for her as he could, and owed her something for her patience with him.
When Isabel and Phemie, fresh from boarding-school, questioned Amy as to what she had learned and what she could do, they were astonished to find that she was, as they said, "further on," than any girl at the school, and indeed might be further on than Miss Effingham herself. They looked at her books with wonder and awe, and listened to her performances on the new piano with delight. And as the time drew nearer for their return to school, a bright thought struck Isabel, that since Amy was so clever, why should they go to Adelaide at all? Could she not teach them at home? And they plied their mother to make their father agree to this delightful arrangement, which would leave them at
