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 1$st$ HE most awful day in my life.

I ought to have gone to church with mother, but I paid grandmother a visit instead. On my way I passed his window. He was not up yet. The windows were still closed in his bedroom, and the curtains were drawn over one of them. I wished that I could have run up to him, shaken him and teased him, till he was wide awake.

It was a horrid cold spring morning with drizzle and fog. People hurried along to church, looking cross and hiding themselves in ugly rain-cloaks. They certainly looked as if they needed all the comfort their religion could give them, while in my heart there was Sabbath without church.

Grandmother, already in full trim, wearing her Sunday cap, sat propped up amongst her pillows. In the window sat old Marie with her knitting, reading the paper. How peaceful everything looked, like a quiet cosy convent church with incense and pot-pourri.

Grandmother patted my hand with her dry, wrinkled old hands. I could see in her eyes that a gift lay within them; but grandmother is not of the garrulous sort. She started: 'I don't think the weather is very nice to-day.' Then again, a little later, 'I should not think many people would go to the woods to-day.' At last, 'I wonder if Julie would like to go to the theatre to-night?' Of course Julie would like it very much, and she