at
once to the cheerful table. Jessie could scarcely wait while the blessing
was asked, so impatient was she to know if Madge's mother had been found.
As soon, therefore, as Uncle Morris ceased speaking, she broke forth and
said:

"O Pa! you don't know how nice Madge will look when she is washed and
dressed. Please tell me if you have seen her mother?"

"No, I have not _seen_ her," replied her father, smiling.

Jessie's face brightened. She had been fearing that Madge would have to go
away if her mother was found. Looking archly at her father, she said--

"I'm _so_ glad. _Now_ poor Madge can stay here!"

"Why, Jessie, you surprise me," said Mrs. Carlton. "Is it any thing to be
glad about, that a little girl has lost her mother?"

With a blush mantling her cheek: the little girl exclaimed--

"Her mother is a wicked woman, Ma, and don't make her happy, nor teach her
to be good. If Madge has lost her, and you let her live with us and be a
mother to her, she will be a good deal better off, and much happier than
she could be with her own mother."

"Spoken like a philosopher!" exclaimed Uncle Morris. "The loss of a
drunken mother is not, indeed, a thing to mourn over, especially if that
loss brings with it the gain of a home in which Love is the perpetual
President--but I suspect from your pa's looks that Madge's mother is not
wholly lost, yet."

"_Why!_ didn't pa say he couldn't find her?" said Jessie, looking with a
puzzled air at her father.

"Not exactly, my dear," replied Mr. Carlton. "I said I had not _seen_ her,
which is true; but I have _heard_ of her, as I suppose; for a strange
woman did go to the tavern about the time Madge was left, and is now in
jail as a drunken vagrant."

"Oh, how shocking!" exclaimed Jessie.

Mr. Carlton now told all he had heard about the supposed Mrs. Clifton, and
it was agreed that Uncle Morris should see her in the morning and learn if
she was, indeed, the poor child's mother.

After tea, Jessie hurried to the kitchen to look after her _protege_. She
found her so changed by her washing and new dress, that notwithstanding
her high expectations, she could hardly believe her to be the same Madge
she had seen sitting there an hour before. But Madge it was, as bright and
good-looking a girl as could be found anywhere, in or out of Duncanville.

"Have you had enough to eat, Madge?" inquired Jessie, scarcely knowing how
to act the part of an agreeable hostess.

"Indade, miss, bu