ren't you, Tommy?" she asked.

"You bet," was Tommy's inelegant but heartfelt answer.

"Well," said Miss Octavia slowly, "I have a brother down at Chelton
who is a florist. He wants a boy of your age to do handy jobs and run
errands about his establishment, and he wants one who is fond of
flowers and would like to learn the business. He asked me to recommend
him one, and I promised to look out for a suitable boy. Would you like
the place, Tommy? And will you promise to be a very good boy and learn
to be respectable if I ask my brother to give you a trial and a chance
to make something of yourself?"

"Oh, Miss Octavia!" gasped Tommy. He wondered if he were simply having
a beautiful dream.

But it was no dream. And it was all arranged later on. No one rejoiced
more heartily in Tommy's success than Bessie.

"But I'll miss you dreadfully, Tommy," she said wistfully.

"Oh, I'll be home every Saturday night, and we'll have Sunday
together, except when I've got to go to Sunday school. 'Cause Miss
Octavia says I must," said Tommy comfortingly. "And the rest of the
time you'll have Roselle Geraldine."

"Yes, I know," said Bessie, giving the blue-silk doll a fond kiss,
"and she's just lovely. But she ain't as nice as you, Tommy, for all."

Then was Tommy's cup of happiness full.

Charlotte's Ladies

Just as soon as dinner was over at the asylum, Charlotte sped away to
the gap in the fence--the northwest corner gap. There was a gap in the
southeast corner, too--the asylum fence was in a rather poor
condition--but the southeast gap was interesting only after tea, and
it was never at any time quite as interesting as the northwest gap.

Charlotte ran as fast as her legs could carry her, for she did not
want any of the other orphans to see her. As a rule, Charlotte liked
the company of the other orphans and was a favourite with them. But,
somehow, she did not want them to know about the gaps. She was sure
they would not understand.

Charlotte had discovered the gaps only a week before. They had not
been there in the autumn, but the snowdrifts had lain heavily against
the fence all winter, and one spring day when Charlotte was creeping
through the shrubbery in the northwest corner in search of the little
yellow daffodils that always grew there in spring, she found a
delightful space where a board had fallen off, whence she could look
out on a bit of woodsy road with a little footpath winding along by
the fence un