have noticed if I had fired a
cannon in their midst, and stood there, spellbound by the loveliest,
most touching scene I ever witnessed. The room has an open fire, and
in a low chair, with the firelight shining on her face, sat that
charming, impulsive girl who gave me the flowers at the cemetery--I
told you about her. She was telling stories to the children. There
were fifteen or twenty of them in the room, all the semi-invalids and
convalescents, I should think, and they were gathered about her like
flies round a saucer of honey. Every child that could, was doing its
best to get a bit of her dress to touch, or a finger of her hand to
hold, or an inch of her chair to lean upon. They were the usual pale,
weary-looking children, most of them with splints and weights and
crutches, and through the folding-doors that opened into the next room
I could see three more tiny things sitting up in their cots and
drinking in every word with eagerness and transport.

"And I don't wonder. There is magic in that girl for sick or sorrowing
people. I wish you could have seen and heard her. Her hair is full of
warmth and color; her lips and cheeks are pink; her eyes are bright
with health and mischief, and beaming with love, too; her smile is like
sunshine, and her voice as glad as a wild bird's. I never saw a
creature so alive and radiant, and I could feel that the weak little
creatures drank in her strength and vigor, without depleting her, as
flowers drink in the sunlight.

"As she stood up and made ready to go, she caught sight of me, and
ejaculated, with the most astonished face, 'Why, it is my lady in
black!' Then, with a blush, she added, 'Excuse me! I spoke without
thinking--I always do. I have thought of you very often since I gave
you the flowers; and as I did n't know your name, I have always called
you my lady in black.'

"'I should be very glad to be your "lady" in any color,' I answered,
'and my other name is Mrs. Bird.' Then I asked her if she would not
come and see me. She said, 'Yes, with pleasure,' and told me also that
her mother was ill, and that she left her as little as possible;
whereupon I offered to go and see her instead.

"Now, here endeth the first lesson, and here beginneth the second,
namely, my new plan, on which I wish to ask your advice. You know that
all the money Donald and I used to spend on Carol's nurses, physicians,
and what not, we give away each Christmas Day in memory of her.