to her,--the pleasant-looking woman and the girl with
crooked feet were kind to her. Uncle Peter petted her, and even Miss
Grundy had more than once admitted that "she was about as good as
young ones would average." Billy, too, had promised to remain and work
for Mr. Parker during the summer, intending with the money thus earned
to go the next fall and winter to the Academy in Wilbraham. Jenny was
coming back ere long, and Mary's step was light and buoyant as she
tripped singing about the house, unmindful of Miss Grundy's
oft-expressed wish that "she would stop that clack," or of the
anxious, pitying eyes Sal Furbush bent upon her, as day after day the
faithful old creature rocked and tended little Alice.

"No," said she, "I cannot tell her. She'll have tears enough to shed
by and by, but I'll double my diligence, and watch little Willie more
closely." So night after night, when Mary was sleeping the deep sleep
of childhood, Sally would steal noiselessly to her room, and bending
over the little wasting figure at her side, would wipe the cold sweat
from her face, and whisper in the unconscious baby's ear messages of
love for "the other little Willie, now waiting for her in Heaven."

At last Mary could no longer be deceived, and one day when Alice lay
gasping in Sally's lap she said, "Aunt Sally isn't Alice growing
worse? She doesn't play now, nor try to walk."

Sally laid her hand on Mary's face and replied, "Poor child, you'll
soon be all alone, for Willie's going to find his mother."

There was no outcry,--no sudden gush of tears, but nervously clasping
her hands upon her heart, as if the shock had entered there, Mary sat
down upon her bed, and burying her face in the pillow, sat there for a
long time. But she said nothing, and a careless observer might have
thought that she cared nothing, as it became each day more and more
evident that Alice was dying. But these knew not of the long nights
when with untiring love she sat by her sister's cradle, listening to
her irregular breathing, pressing her clammy hands, and praying to be
forgiven if ever, in thought or deed, she had wronged the little one
now leaving her.

And all this time there came no kind word or message of love from
Ella, who knew that Alice was dying, for Billy had told her so. "Oh,
if she would only come and see her;" said Mary, "it wouldn't seem half
so bad."

"Write to her," said Sal; "peradventure that may bring her."

Mary had not thought of t