upport my little girl. I thank
you for your offer, but I love my baby too much to accept it.'

"But it was a hard pull. She worked in an office; she worked on a
farm. Then a position was offered her as a teacher in a Home for
Little Children. Here she could have her own room and keep the baby
with her when she was not teaching. And while she was teaching, it
would be cared for with the rest. Gladly the mother took the position
and for more than a year she was very, very happy.

"One night when the baby was nearly three years old, she sat reading
in the parlor of the home when some one called, 'Fire! Fire! Fire in
the left wing!' Oh! that was where her baby was, on the very top
floor. Like a bird she flew across the hall where the smoke already
was pouring out. Up the first flight, choking, she went. Up the
second. Then she had to fall to the floor to creep along. She could
see the fire. It was on the fourth floor where her Mary was. Could
she ever reach it? Would the fire block her way?

"Ten minutes after the call of fire had been given, the workers saw
some one staggering through the lower hall. In her arms she carried a
bundle wrapped tightly in a bed-quilt. And dangling from her hands
was a long string of beads. Her face was burned. There was no hair on
her head. She was writhing in agony, but she reached the door, handed
the burden to a worker, saying quietly, 'I am badly burned, but I
have saved my two treasures. Keep them safely for me.' Then she fell
in a heap on the floor.

"For months and months and months she tossed on a bed of pain. No one
thought she could possibly live. But she did, for she was living for
her baby. When at last she came from the hospital, her beautiful
face was scarred and red; only in spots had the hair grown; her hands
were stiff and painful, and one leg dragged as she walked. But she
was alive, and that was all she asked.

"While she had been ill, I had gone to see the mill owner to ask for
help for the brave little woman who had shown us all what a heroine
she was. But his answer had been, 'She took my son from me and I will
have nothing to do with her. If she will give the child to me, I will
bring it up in luxury, but I will not have her here.'

"So when she was ready to go back to work, I told her that another
offer had come from the grandfather of the child to adopt it and I
said to her, 'Don't you feel