e to read, and I've been so
glad since. I was pretty small when they died,--first father, then mother.
I remember it a little; at least I remember about mother,--she kissed me
so, and cried. Then Aunt Jane came for me, and brought me here. We lived
in a pleasant house up the street, at first. I used to work in the mill,
and earned enough to pay aunt what I cost her. Then one day, when I was
thirteen years old, we were coming out at noon, all of us girls, in a
great hurry and frolic, and I felt sick and dizzy watching the wheels go
round, and,--well, they didn't mean to,--but they pushed me, and I fell."

"Down stairs?"

"All the way,--it was a long, crooked flight. I struck my spine on every
step."

"Oh, Peace!" said Gypsy, half under her breath.

"I was sick for a little while; then I got better. I thought it was all
over. Then one day I found a little curve between my shoulders, and
so,--well, it came so slowly I hardly knew it, till at last I was in bed
with the pain. We had come here because it was hard times, and aunt had to
support me,--and then there were the doctor's bills."

"Doesn't he say you can _ever_ get well? never sit up a little while?"

"Oh, no."

Gypsy gasped a little, as if she were suffocating.

"And your aunt,--is she kind to you?"

"Oh, yes."

A certain flitting expression, that the face of Peace caught with the
words, Gypsy could not help seeing.

"But I mean, real kind. Does she love you?"

The girl's cheek flushed to a pale, quick crimson, then faded slowly.

"She is very good to me. I am a great trouble. You know I am not her own.
It is very hard for her that I can't support myself."

Gypsy said something just then, in her innermost thought of thoughts,
about Aunt Jane, that Aunt Jane would not have cared to hear.

"If I could only earn something!" said Peace, with a quick breath, that
sounded like a sigh. "That is hardest of all. But it's all right somehow."

"Peace Maythorne!" said Gypsy, in a little flash, "I don't see! never to
go out in the wind and jump on the hay, and climb the mountains, and run
and row and snowball,--why, it would _kill_ me! And you lie here so sweet
and patient, and you haven't said a cross word all the while you've been
telling me about it. I don't understand! How can you, _can_ you bear it?"

"I couldn't, if I didn't tell Him," said Peace, softly.

"Whom?"

"God."

There was a long silence. Gypsy looked out of the window, winking very
hard,