ts. Its furniture consisted of several long, slat-bottomed settees
and a single large rocking-chair which, crowded with children, was
swinging noisily over the bare boards. At our entrance the chair stopped
rocking, and one of the children climbed out.

It was Julia. She came promptly over to my side, while a half-dozen of
the other children jumped off the benches and ran to the rocking-chair
to squabble over the question of who should take the vacant place.

"Did yez have a row?" she asked eagerly. "Say, did yez?"

I evaded the question, thinking it neither advisable nor proper to
satisfy the curiosity of the little mite. To divert her attention, I
began questioning her about herself and her little companions--who were
they, what were they, and how did they come to be here?

"Why, don't you know?" the little one asked, looking at me in amazement.
"We're waifs!"

"Waifs! What sort of waifs?"

"Why, just waifs."

"But I didn't know this was an orphan-asylum," I said, looking about at
the children sitting in rows of two and three upon the scattered
settees.

"Oh, no, ma'am. We're not orfants," the child hastened to correct me;
"we're just waifs."

"And where are your fathers and mothers, then?" I cried.

"We ain't got none," Julia replied promptly, the little hand again
stealing through the long sleeve and stroking my much-admired skirt. She
had now snuggled down beside me upon the settee, and instinctively,
rather than from any desire to show friendliness, I drew my arm about
the small shoulders, which overture was interpreted as an invitation for
the cropped head to nestle closer.

"But if you haven't father or mothers, then you must be orphans," I
reasoned,--an argument which made Julia straighten up suddenly and look
at me in puzzled wonderment.

"No, we ain't orfants, neither, exceptin' just a few that did onct have
fathers and mothers, mebbe; but me and May Wistaria and Mintie
Delancy--they was the girls you seen up-stairs in HER room--we never did
have no fathers and mothers, we're just waifs, and so's them kids waifs
too that's playing in the rocking-chair. They was all foundling-asylum
kids."

At this moment a thick-set woman in a black dress appeared in the
doorway, which was a signal for all the little girls to make an
onslaught upon her. They twined their arms about her large waist, they
hung three and four upon each of her generous, kindly arms, and the
smaller girls held on to her skirts.