to persuade the little
thing to eat,--she is so charmed with the dainty appearance of the
tray."

"Oh-h!" whispered the three voices in awed chorus.

"Didn't she have anything to eat in her own house?" ventured Allee.

"Nothing but dry bread and greasy soup all the five years she has laid
there--"

"Five years!" repeated Peace in horrified accents. "Without any sunshine
and green grass and flowers! O, I sh'd think she'd have _died_ before
this! Didn't she ever go to school and play with other children?"

"Before she fell from the fire-escape--"

"Was she hurt in a fire?" interrupted Cherry with interest.

"No, there was no fire, but the fire-escape was her only playground, for
her mother would not let her run the streets with the other ragamuffins
of the tenements; and one day she fell and crushed her hip. But before
that, she had attended a free kindergarten around the corner and learned
her alphabet. Her mother has a little education, and she has managed to
find time to teach Sadie how to read, but that is all the child knows of
school."

"O," sighed Peace, with a sudden yearning for the rambling old
school-house, the high-ceilinged rooms, her low seat by the window, and
even stern Miss Phelps, "what a lot she has missed! Here I'm feeling bad
'cause school will be out 'fore I am up again, if I have to stay in bed
two months longer, and I'll be way behind my classes. But Sadie has
never had a chance to go to school at all."

"Yes, dearie, you see how much you have to be thankful for, even if it
is two months before you can get out of doors again by yourself. Until
now, Sadie never knew what flowers looked like growing in the ground. I
sent her a pot of your hyacinths when the Aid made their monthly visit
to the Hospital, and Mrs. Cheever was just telling me that the child
could not believe they were really alive. It is so sad to find one
cheated out of so much in life."

"Isn't there something else I can send her of mine?" Peace anxiously
inquired. "I've got so much and she hasn't anything. These puzzles are
so stale I don't want to see 'em again and those books--"

"Suppose you make some scrapbooks to amuse her with at first," suggested
Mrs. Campbell hastily, for when the missionary spirit seized this
restless, active body, it never ceased working until she had given away
not only all her own treasures, but all those belonging to her sisters
which chanced to fall into her hands.

"Scrapbooks!" cried Pe