cutting a slice now and then from the loaf, telling her
that she had taken nothing, smoothing her hair, and wishing for her
sake that the fire were better. "I'm afeard of father, Fan,--awfully;
but for all that, it's the sweetest meal as I've had since I left the
mill." Then Fanny was on her knees beside the returned profligate,
covering even the dear one's garments with her kisses.

It was late before Fanny laid herself down by her sister's side that
night. "Carry," she whispered when her sister was undressed, "will
you kneel here and say your prayers as you used to?" Carry, without a
word, did as she was bidden, and hid her face upon her hands in her
sister's lap. No word was spoken out loud, but Fanny was satisfied
that her sister had been in earnest. "Now sleep, my darling;--and
when I've just tidied your things for the morning, I will be with
you." The wanderer again obeyed, and in a few moments the work of the
past two days befriended her, and she was asleep. Then the sister
went to her task with the soiled frock and the soiled shoes, and
looked up things clean and decent for the morrow. It would be at any
rate well that Carry should appear before her father without the
stain of the road upon her.

As the lost one lay asleep there, with her soft ringlets all loose
upon the pillow, still beautiful, still soft, lovely though an
outcast from the dearest rights of womanhood, with so much of
innocence on her brow, with so much left of the grace of childhood
though the glory of the flower had been destroyed by the unworthy
hand that had ravished its sweetness, Fanny, sitting in the corner
of the room over her work, with her eye from moment to moment turned
upon the sleeper, could not keep her mind from wandering away in
thoughts on the strange destiny of woman. She knew that there had
been moments in her life in which her great love for her sister had
been tinged with envy. No young lad had ever waited in the dusk to
hear the sound of her footfall; no half-impudent but half-bashful
glances had ever been thrown after her as she went through the
village on her business. To be a homely, household thing, useful
indeed in this world, and with high hopes for the future,--but still
to be a drudge; that had been her destiny. There was never a woman
to whom the idea of being loved was not the sweetest thought that
her mind could produce. Fate had made her plain, and no man had
loved her. The same chance had made Carry pretty,