rt ached
to part with the silken coat which had enwrapped her precious
"Guardian," even though it were now soiled and most disreputable.

However, these were minor troubles. The joyful fact remained that Bonny
Angel had not died but was already recovered and seemed more like her
own gay little self with every passing moment. Clothes didn't matter,
even if they were those of a boy. They needed considerable hitching up
and pinning, for they were as minus of buttons as all the garments
seemed to be which had to pass through Mary Fogarty's hands and washtub;
but a few strings would help and maybe Timothy Dowd could supply those;
and if once Take-a-Stitch could get her fingers upon a needle and
thread--my, how she would alter everything!

Summoned back to the cottage, after she had fulfilled her hostess's last
demand, Glory's spirits rose to the highest. It was the first time she
had entered the ranks of the seven other children which filled it to
overflowing, and who were "shooed" into or out of it, according to their
mother's whim.

It happened to be out, just then, and with the throng Glory, fast
holding Bonny in her arms, chanced to pass close beside the shivering
Dennis in his seat by the stove. He looked at her curiously but kindly,
and his gaze moved from her now happy face to that of the child in her
clasp, where it rested with such a fixed yet startled expression that
Glory exclaimed, "Oh, sir, what is it? Do you see anything wrong with my
precious?"

Now it was the fact that Dennis Fogarty spoke as seldom as his wife did
often; and that when he was most profoundly moved he spoke not at all.
So then, though his eyes kept their astonished, perplexed expression,
his lips closed firmly and to Glory's anxious inquiry, he made no reply.

Therefore, waiting but a moment longer, she hurried after the other
children and in five minutes was leading them at their games just as she
had always led the Elbow children in theirs. But Bonny was still too
weak and too small to keep up very long with the boisterous play of
these new mates, and seeing this, Take-a-Stitch presently made the seven
group themselves around her on the grass while she told them tales.

Glory thought of all the fairy stories with which the old blind captain
had beguiled their darkened evenings in that "littlest house" where gas
or lamplight could not be afforded; then she went on to real stories of
the Elbow children themselves; of Meg-Laundress and Po