The Rainbow Bridge

A YEAR passed away, in which time Marian was kept more and more outside of the family and more and more apart from all ordinary pleasures of childhood, but in spite of everythin...

"JUNE 20.--It is hard to begin a diary. You don't know what to say first. Bernice Jones says a diary is a book to put the weather in. She ought to know on account of her grandmo...

EARLY in the winter, diphtheria broke out in the schools. Marian said little about it at home, fearing she might not be allowed to go, though the daily paper told the whole stor...

JUNE sent her messengers early. Every blade of grass that pushed its way through the brown earth, every bursting lilac bud or ambitious maple, spoke to Marian of June. Returning...

"You want to get yourself adopted," was her advice. "I'm going to, first chance I get. When I was too well to stay in the hospital and not enough well to come home, a pretty lad...

"OCTOBER 15.--You might as well keep a diary, especially in a school where they have a silent hour. It is the queerest thing I ever heard of but every night between seven and ei...

TRUE to her word, Aunt Amelia carried Marian's breakfast to her room. But for the interference of Uncle George his little niece would have been given bread and water; it was all...

MARIAN was so happy with her doll and teaset the following day she was blind and deaf to all that happened in the house outside her little room. She didn't know that Mrs. Russel...

IN the early morning the schoolhouse was a quiet place, and there Miss Virginia Smith went to study. No one knew why she worked so hard, though Marian often wondered. It was her...

"Suit me," repeated Marian, "nothing ever suited me better. I'm pretty glad I'm going there. Why didn't you send me back to school, Uncle George? School won't be out for two mon...

THE second day of the journey to the new home, Marian laughed aloud. She had slept well the night before and had taken a lively interest in everything she saw from the time she...

Mrs. St. Claire usually took Ella with her wherever she went, but sometimes she was compelled to leave the child at home with her father or Tilly, and there was merriment in the...

IN November Ella and her mother began making plans for Christmas. Aunt Amelia invited seven little girls to tea one night when Uncle George was away, and Marian ate in the kitch...

MARIAN was studying Monday morning when Florence returned from Chicago. She burst into the room like a wind blown rose, even forgetting to close the door until she had hugged Ma...

ONE summer day the St. Claires were the guests of a farmer who lived a few miles from town. Ella stayed in the house with her mother and the farmer's wife, but Marian saw the fa...

THERE was no kindergarten in the Home for Little Pilgrims when Marian was a baby. The child was scarcely five when she marched into the schoolroom to join the changing ranks of...

THERE was always room for one more in the Home for Little Pilgrims. Especially was this true of the nursery; not because the nursery was so large, nor because there was the leas...

THERE was no question about it. Aunt Amelia had a perfect right to claim the child. The superintendent was sorry to admit it, but what could he do? Mrs. Moore was heartbroken, b...

MISS VIRGINIA SMITH knew how to teach arithmetic. Fractions lost their terror for Marian, even the mysteries of cube root were eagerly anticipated. History became more than ever...

TRY as hard as she would, Marian could not fit into Aunt Amelia's home. Everywhere within its walls, she was Marian the unwanted. Saddest of all, the child annoyed Uncle George....

ALL the children in Marian's class were writing in their copy-books "Knowledge is Power." The pens squeaked and scratched and labored across pages lighted by June sunshine. The...

MARIAN'S letters to her Uncle George were written on Sunday afternoons. She wrote pages and pages about Miss Smith and the country school and begged him not to come for her in A...

"It is a curious thing," he remarked to the child, "that other people find it so easy to get along with you, and here at home there is no peace in the house while you are in it."