, and a little matter detained me a few moments; and
when I came back, the train had gone. I was so sorry, for I'm in such
a hurry to get home. Do you live in New York?"

Ester shook her head, and thought within herself: "That is just as
much sense as I should suppose you to have--risk the chance of missing
a train for the sake of a paper of candy."

Of course Ester could not be expected to know that the chocolate drops
were for the wee sister at home, whose heart would be nearly broken if
sister Fanny came home, after an absence of twenty-four hours, without
bringing her any thing; and the "little matter" which detained her
a few moments, was joining the search after a twenty-five-cent bill
which the ruthless wind had snatched from the hand of a barefooted,
bareheaded, and almost forlorn little girl, who cried as violently
as though her last hope in life had been blown away with it; nor
how, failing in finding the treasure, the gold-clasped purse had been
opened, and a crisp, new bill had been taken out to fill its place;
neither am I at all certain as to whether it would have made any
difference at all in Ester's verdict, if she had known all the
circumstances.

The side door opened quietly just at this point and a middle-aged man
came in, carrying in one hand a tool-box, and in the other a two-story
tin pail. Both girls watched him curiously as he set these down on the
floor, and, taking tacks from his pocket and a hammer from his box, he
proceeded to tack a piece of paper to the wall. Ester, from where
she sat, could see that the paper was small, and that something was
printed on it in close, fine type. It didn't look in the least like a
handbill, or indeed like a notice of any sort. Her desire to know what
it could be grew strong; two tiny tacks held it firmly in its place.
Then the man turned and eyed the inmates of the room, who were by this
time giving undivided attention to him and his bit of paper Presently
he spoke, in a quiet, respectful tone:

"I've tacked up a nice little tract. I thought maybe while you was
waiting you might like something to read. If one of you would read
it aloud, all the rest could hear it." So saying, the man stooped
and took up his tool-box and his tin pail, and went away, leaving the
influences connected with those two or three strokes of his hammer to
work for him through all time, and meet him at the judgment. But if
a bomb-shell had suddenly come down and laid itself in ruins