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We heard last week she was going, so we sent her word by Richard Spencer's folks at Carmody to bring us a smart, likely boy of about ten or eleven.

We decided that would be the best age-old enough to be of some use in doing chores right off and young enough to be trained up proper.

We mean to give him a good home and schooling.

We had a telegram from Mrs. Alexander Spencer today-the mail-man brought it from the station-saying they were coming on the five-thirty train tonight.

So Matthew went to Bright River to meet him.

Mrs. Spencer will drop him off there.

Of course she goes on to White Sands station herself."

Mrs. Rachel prided herself on always speaking her mind; she proceeded to speak it now, having adjusted her mental attitude to this amazing piece of news.

"Well, Marilla, I'll just tell you plain that I think you're doing a mighty foolish thing-a risky thing, that's what.

You don't know what you're getting.

You're bringing a strange child into your house and home and you don't know a single thing about him nor what his disposition is like nor what sort of parents he had nor how he's likely to turn out.

Why, it was only last week I read in the paper how a man and his wife up west of the Island took a boy out of an orphan asylum and he set fire to the house at night-set it ON PURPOSE, Marilla-and nearly burnt them to a crisp in their beds.

And I know another case where an adopted boy used to suck the eggs-they couldn't break him of it.

If you had asked my advice in the matter-which you didn't do, Marilla-I'd have said for mercy's sake not to think of such a thing, that's what."

This Job's comforting seemed neither to offend nor to alarm Marilla. She knitted steadily on.

"I don't deny there's something in what you say, Rachel.

I've had some qualms myself.

But Matthew was terrible set on it.

I could see that, so I gave in.

It's so seldom Matthew sets his mind on anything that when he does I always feel it's my duty to give in.

And as for the risk, there's risks in pretty near everything a body does in this world.

There's risks in people's having children of their own if it comes to that-they don't always turn out well.

And then Nova Scotia is right close to the Island.

It isn't as if we were getting him from England or the States.

He can't be much different from ourselves."

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