? What is just the same?"

"Why, just the same vine as the one on the white house."

"She saw the old home place when she drove over with Mr. Ladd," said
Mr. Alder. "She remembered the vine."

"I am glad you like it. You ought to like it, Clematis, because it
has your own name," added Mr. Alder.

"Well, well, is her name Clematis?" Mr. Brooks took her on his knee
and looked into her face.

"I wish I had a little girl like you," he said.

She sat there on his knee, while he talked with Mr. Alder.

"I hope you will come again, Clematis. You will, if you get a
chance, won't you?" Mr. Brooks said, as they started to go.

He brought out a big, sweet pear, and put it into her hand.

"You can eat that on the way home," he said.

All the way home Clematis kept thinking of Mr. Brooks, and the vine,
and how he had looked into her face while she sat on his knee.

She had never known any father or mother, and people didn't have
time to hold her that way at the Home.

"Could we go again?" she asked, as they crossed the river.

"Well, perhaps. We'll see."

When they got home, Mrs. Alder was sitting on the back steps.

Beside her, in the grass, lay three dead chickens.

"How on earth did those chickens get killed?" asked Mr. Alder, as he
took one in his hand.

"Why on earth did that child ever bring her old cat up here? That's
what I'd like to know." Mrs. Alder was cross.

"Did Deborah do that? Dear me! We'll have to shut her up in the
loft."

"That's where she is, and that's where she'll stay," said Mrs.
Alder. "Remember now, Clematis. Don't you let her get out again."

"Yes'm," said Clematis.

She didn't know what else to say, so she went sadly to the loft.
There she found Deborah, sleeping sweetly, as if she had never done
a thing wrong in the world.

She sat down by the open window, and looked across the river valley,
and across the lake, to the mountains.

"Oh dear!" she sighed.

She heard Mrs. Alder speaking.

"I don't care, I think the Doctor was asking a good deal of us, to
keep a strange child like that."

"Well, Mary, never mind. It is only for a few days longer. I guess
we can stand it. Think of the pleasure it gives Clematis."

Mr. Alder spoke kindly, but as Clematis heard the words, she turned
pale.

"Only a few days more. Only a few days more." The words went through
her mind again and again.

She had never thought about going back. Two weeks seems a long, long
time to little girls.