fternoon; 'taint to be expected as I can,
although teacher'll be just mad, being as it's near 'xamination time,"
declared Mattie.

"That's prime, Mattie! What'll we do? Not stay up here all the time?"
cried Bob.

"In course not. We'll have our dinner, and then we'll just get a breath
of air in the park. It'll do baby good; won't it, darling?" said Mattie,
stooping over her puny charge as fondly as if he were the bonniest baby
in the land, instead of a feeble, wan-faced infant, upon whom, as indeed
upon each of the group which surrounded him, there was stamped the
unmistakable imprint of an inherited curse.

"I'm glad mammie's out, Mattie. I wish you was our mammie, and could
take us clean away," said Bob, hanging about Mattie's chair.

"When I get bigger and can earn money, that's what I'm going to do, you
know, Bob. Me, and Melie, and you'll just work and keep the children,
and we won't have 'em knocked about, poor little mites, will we?"

"No, we won't, but I wish we was big enough now," sighed Bob, to whom
the tempting prospect was sufficiently familiar and delightful to help
him to bear bravely the privation of his daily lot.

"Well, we ain't, so it's no use wishing we was," responded
matter-of-fact Mattie; "but I'll tell you what I do wish, and that is as
mammie and daddie'd just turn over a new leaf, and stop the drinking.
Then we'd never need to be talking of running away and leaving 'em; for
I tell you, we'd all pretty soon know the difference."

"Tell us what a nice home we'd have afore long, and what jolly things
we'd get to eat," said Bob.

"Don't you be so greedy, Bob. 'Tain't the want of good things to eat as
troubles me so much. It's the rows, and the swearing, and the kicking,
and beating, as takes the life out of one," and Mattie's face grew dark
as she spoke.

"Mattie," asked Melie, as she munched away at her crust; "do all mammies
get drunk like ourn?"

"They do about here, I b'lieve," answered Mattie, somewhat dubiously;
"but lor, no, child, in course they don't. There's the lady in the shop
where we buy our penn'orths of bread, as allers is as kind and pleasant
spoken to her little uns as--as--"

A comparison was not speedily forthcoming, but Bob finished his sister's
sentence by saying: "Like you are to all of us, Mattie."

"I'd hate to speak cross to bits of things like you," answered Mattie
loftily, but with a little glow at her heart because of the spontaneous
tribute to her sister