ee
straight into it. There it was, with its bright papered walls, and gay
red carpet, its deep low window seat looking like a garden, where
flowers bloomed and frail exotics stretched forth their delicate leaves
to bathe in the sunlight that came streaming in, and cunning little
yellow birds, in quaint, tiny cages, sang the long day through. And
there--oh, busy fingers! making neat and bright the little home--heart
of love, shedding blessed sunlight around it--there, so busy and blithe,
so happy and gay, sat the presiding genius of the place, with a face so
bright and good--just such a face as you would expect to see in such a
home; one that sad and disappointed mortals, meeting in the street,
would turn to for a second look, and bless it as it passed; a face to
which childhood cleaves instinctively, sure of ready sympathy with its
little joys and sorrows; one that would never be disfigured by envy or
malice; never grow black with passion, and oh! never, never look
senseless, idiotic, and drivelling, as another face on which he looked
so often did; but to Harry's fancy, it was like the sky on a calm
summer's day, always pure and bright, and always the same. It was
brighter and happier and better altogether when, in the fresh morning
time, the little lady went tripping by on the pavement beneath the
window with a small market basket on her arm. Then Harry, clambering to
the sill, and leaning out, could see straight into it; and sometimes it
happened that, attracted by that fixed gaze of earnest admiration, that
happy face would be turned upward, and break into a beaming smile, as
the sunny eyes met the large, blue, mournful orbs looking down upon
them. Then there would be a smile on the lip and a song in the heart of
the little watcher for the rest of the day. Cheering and dear as that
face had ever been to him since he had first had the happiness of
beholding it, much as he had watched and loved it, it had drawn him with
a more potent attraction still and grown doubly dear of late. He had
been within the sacred precincts of a true home; he had breathed that
atmosphere of heaven; he knew how that small, snug, cosy room looked to
its inmates now. Yes, he had been there, and his going in chanced in the
following manner:

This lady, whose cheerful presence was fast becoming a benison to Harry,
had, among her other bright possessions, a rosy-cheeked, laughing-eyed,
frolicsome mischief, about Harry's age, and he had recently