retty!" said
the child. Then her face clouded again as she opened the book that she
held in thin little hands that were like claws.

"The baby did it," she said sorrowfully as she exhibited a picture torn
across. "He isn't a year old yet and don't understand. He isn't the
least naughty, only _mischeevious_, you know. Ma says I ought not to
have been reading it while I was minding him, but you see I'm _always_
minding him except when he's asleep--and then he wakes right up,
mostly."

She sighed. "Do you s'pose you can mend it?" she inquired.

"Yes, indeed," returned Elsie promptly, and smiled involuntarily.

The child fingered her frock. "Miss Rachel would scold," she faltered,

Elsie didn't know what to say. Neither did she understand why tears
should come to her eyes, except that the little girl was so small, so
thin, so clean and sweet, and so very childish in spite of her
responsibility.

She found some gummed paper, cut a strip, brought the torn edges
carefully together and mended the picture as neatly as if she had not
been a week ago as helpless an able-bodied girl of her age as there was
anywhere to be found. Her sense of satisfaction was certainly
commensurate, perhaps extravagant.

"There! Miss Stewart will never know," she said. "Do you want another
book now?"

"Yes, please; but--is it right for Miss Rachel not to know?"

Elsie considered. "Perhaps not," she admitted, "but at any rate she
won't mind since it looks as well as before."

"And I'll be very careful after this," added the child.

She selected another volume from the children's shelf, and having had
it charged, turned to go. But somehow Elsie was loath to have her.

"Why don't you sit down at the table and look at the picture papers?"
she suggested.

"Oh, I've got to mind the baby," said Mattie--Mattie Howe was the name
on her card. "I must be home when he wakes up. Good-by."

She started--came back--stood irresolute.

"Thank you for mending the book so good--so _goodly_," she said shyly,
"and--I'd like to kiss you."

With a curious sensation that had no admixture of reluctance, Elsie
bent over and received the kiss.

"You're prettier than the princess," the little girl declared, and ran
away with her book.

Elsie Marley hardly knew what would have happened if an elderly lady
hadn't come in at that moment and asked for "Cruden's Concordance."
She had some difficulty in finding it, but the lady was very pleasant
a