piciously and then wiped her eyes, already red with
weeping. She expected to be told to mind her business, but contrary to
her expectations, Faith answered:

"This is the _saddest_ story,--all about a girl who loved one man and
had to marry another."

Peace's nose curled scornfully, and she said, with great contempt, "I
don't see any use in bawl--crying about that. Those story people never
lived. Real folks have more sense."

But Faith had gone back to her magazine of sorrows, and never even heard
this small sister's criticism. So Peace dropped down on a heap of
sacking, propped her chin up with her elbows on her knees, and fell to
studying the face opposite her, noting with alarm how thin it had grown,
and how darkly circled were the brown eyes so like her own. Fear lest
Dr. Bainbridge did not know how ill she really was gripped her heart,
and she sighed heavily just as Faith finished her chapter and roused to
search for the next number of the magazine.

"What is the matter?" she demanded, looking at the sober little face
with surprise.

"Are you sick?" asked Peace in an awestruck whisper, ignoring her
sister's question.

"No. Why? My head aches some, but that is all."

"I sh'd think it _would_ ache," cried the child in sudden indignation.
"Why did you poke up here where there ain't any window to read by?
You'll be blind some day if you _amuse_ your eyes like that. Teacher
said so to all our class the day she found Tessie Hunt reading on the
basement stairs. If you've got to read all the time, why don't you go
out-doors or by a window? It's enough to make anyone's head ache the way
you mope around reading all the time. Dr. Bainbridge says as soon as you
get up and go to work you'll be all right."

Faith's face flushed angrily and she demanded, with some heat, "What do
you know about what Dr. Bainbridge says?"

"I asked him a-purpose to see whether you were going to be an angel
soon."

For a moment Faith was too startled for reply, and then she asked
curiously, with a queer flutter in her heart, "What did he say!"

"He just howled, 'No--o!' as loud as he could shout, and after that he
said, more quiet-like, that you'd never be an angel as long as you kept
on the way you are going. He says you need a good, common dose of sense
and a cannon under your chair. He said Gail and Hope are the angels, and
when I cried and told him we could spare you easier'n we could them, he
said that he didn't mean sure-enough a