RHODA AND HER BROTHER.

Out from that room Rhoda Weeks went, almost singing with happiness; but she had scarcely reached the street, when a thought of care settled on her, and she became demure as a mouse. That queer old look came to her face, and she began to calculate gravely, like any miser, and, for the first time in months, went home with a few unsold matches in her basket.

That home was in an old tenement-house, standing up, bare and gaunt, among the small houses of a poor neighborhood, crowded, like a bee-hive, with the hard working and idle poverty of a great city. Rhoda Weeks lived at the very top of the house, and cared as little for the staircases as a bird does for the boughs that shelter its nest. Up she flitted like a sprite, the basket on one arm, her little hood swinging back by the strings, while the scarlet ribbon rippled in her hair, and fell down her back like quivers of flame whenever she passed a window, or was crossed by a gleam of sunshine in her flight upward.

Rhoda opened the door of a little room, so high and close to the roof, that it was flooded with sunshine, though all the neighborhood below lay in shadow. There was enough of squalid misery in that building, but it had not yet mounted to that little room which, in its neatness, could well brave all the sunlight poured into it from the glory of the west, when a warm day was bathing itself in a sea of crimson before it dropped into the unalterable past.

As Rhoda opened the door a boy sat in this rich light, with his arms folded on the window-sill, gazing out upon the sunset. He had evidently been at work, for a coil of coarse braid, woven from fresh wheat straw, lay around him upon the floor, and some of the loose straws had fallen from his hands.

"Luke!"

The boy turned quickly, and saw his sister, with the scarlet ribbon in her hair, challenging his admiration. His grey eyes lighted up, and a smile parted his lips.

"Oh! how pretty it is, and how fine we are!" he said, giving a little pull at the ribbon. "I was just thinking of you, sister, wishing that you and I——"

"And father," suggested Rhoda.

"Yes, and father, could just get into one of those fiery boats that plunge in and out of the golden clouds, and float off into the other world."

"Where we should find _her_," whispered Rhoda.

"Where we should find her. If we could all go together, Rhoda, in that way or across the golden bridge which fell from one cloud to another, as I looked only a minute ago, and leave all this behind."

The boy dropped his hand and pointed downward to the street, thus taking in the mass of poverty-stricken life moving beneath them.

"Now you are getting sad and strange again, brother Luke; and that troubles me when I come home at nights. I love to see beautiful things in the sky, but they make me glad, not solemn, as you are, Luke."

"But I see so much more than the gold and crimson, with green and purple shooting through them, or floating off in seas and lakes; to me all that glory is full of life. I can almost hear music coming from those burning worlds, and see crowds on crowds of people going in and out, enjoying all that you and I might search after forever and ever, and die without reaching."

"But there is no such thing, Luke. While you are thinking about it, those mountains of fire, and lakes of gold melt away, and leave nothing but a black sky behind."

"I know it! I know it!" answered the boy, sadly. "But every day God gives them to us; and we know that he has another and more beautiful world somewhere, where you and I may be happy like the rest. Rhoda, dear, the richest man on earth has nothing better than this."

"But it is gone, now; take yourself from the window, dear, and let us see how your work comes on. I am going to make up the hats this evening."

Luke turned his face lingeringly on the sky. It had deepened into a dark, violet hue, into which the warm rose-tints, and hot, golden-red merged themselves.

"Yes, it is getting dusk; all my bridges and castles are burned down," he said. "Now I will talk with you, Rhoda."

"Well, about the work?"

"I don't like it, Rhoda. It is fit for women, and comes to so little, after all."

"True enough, Luke; if you were strong, and well, and saucy, like me, the money we could make would astonish folks. But you don't like running about, and I do."

Luke nodded his head, and the long lashes fell like shadows to his pale cheek.

"But now, about supper, Luke? Has father come in yet?"

"No; he's gone for a long walk over to the Jersey flats. But there's plenty of kindling wood, and I'll make the fire."

"No, you sit still; I'm not a bit tired. There's no need of your doing girl's work all the time. Ain't these capital matches? My customers get the worth of their money. See how the wood blazes up. Now help me pull out the table. Nothing but poor folks let it stand against the wall when they eat; and we are not poor folks—far from it. Now the table-cloth. I must wash it out to-night, and iron it before breakfast. Getting it crooked, am I; well, you can put it right. The kettle begins to steam up; and I've got such a nice, tender bit of beef-steak for you and father."

Directly the beef-steak was sending its savory smoke into the room, and a little earthen teapot shot out puffs of steam from its place on the stove-hearth, about which Rhoda flitted with a knife in her hand, as if she had made up her mind to defend as well as prepare her father's supper. Never was there such a bright, womanly little creature as this. The life within her seemed inexhaustible; after tramping the streets all day, she had come home, cheerful as a lark, to brighten up that little home, and prepare her father's supper.

"Now, all is ready," she said, taking off a little mite of an apron, and washing her tiny hands in a grave, old-fashioned way, that would have made you smile. "He may come now as soon as he likes."