The gates ajar. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.

The Gates Ajar. 25
always had a queer, clinging, superior sort of
Sove for us both. She dandled us on her knees,
and made all our rag-dolls, and carried us
through measles and mumps and the rest.
Then mother's early death threw all the care
upon her. I believe that in her secret heart
she considers me more her child than her mistress. It cost a great many battles to become
established as " Miss Mary."
"I should like to know," she Would say,
throwing back her great, square shoulders and
towering up in front of me,-" I should like to
know if you s'pose I'm a goin' to' Miss' anybody that I've trotted to Bamberry Cross as
many times as I have you, Mary Cabot!
Catch me!"
I remember how she would insist on calling
me " her baby " after I was in long dresses, and
that it mortified me cruelly once when Meta
Tripp was here to tea with some Boston cousins. Poor, good Phoebe! Her rough love
seems worth more to me, now that it is all I
have left me in the world. It occurs to me
that I may not have taken notice enough of
her lately. She has done her honest best to
comfort me, and she loved Roy, too.
But about the letter. I wrapped my face up
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