nd
decidedly uncomfortable. Ned was so tired of living in one little room,
where all day long mamma sat by the window and sewed till the day-light
faded away; and sometimes, too, both he and mamma went to bed rather
hungry, and when the little boy used to pat his mother's thin cheeks
lovingly, after a sweet baby fashion he had, he could often feel the
tears in her eyes, when it was too dark for _his_ bright blue eyes to
look upon her face. There was a cunning little dog, Fido, Ned's only
playmate, which also lived with them in that small room, and his chief
occupation was the constant wagging of a very bushy tail, and a
readiness to accept the slightest invitation for a frolic from his small
master.

As for Fido's meals, he had grown so used to circumstances that I don't
believe he even remembered the taste of a good juicy bone such as he
used to have in Ned's old home before the days of poverty came. Never
mind _what_ brought about a change of circumstances in the family, but
the change had come sadly enough, and Ned and mamma had only the memory
of the times gone by to comfort them. Fido had been a puppy in those
days--they were only two years back, after all--and if dogs can
remember, no doubt this doggie longed for the green fields and sunny
lanes in the pretty country town where he and Ned ran races together,
and _never_ were hungry. The little boy was only six years old then, and
now, on the day before my story begins, mamma had celebrated his eighth
birthday by buying him a tiny sugar angel with gauze wings, which filled
Ned with awe and delight. Eat it? No, not he! it was far too lovely for
that; so he suspended the angelic toy by a string, and it soared above
Ned's bed day and night, keeping sweet watch over all things.

But to Fido, the shaggy-haired, pug-nosed companion of his days, and
sharer of his discomforts, Ned's heart clung with a love unbounded. He
laughed, and Fido laughed, or, that is to say, Fido _barked_, which
meant a laugh, of course. Ned cried, and Fido also wept, if a drooping
of ears and tail, and a decided downcast expression of countenance,
meant anything in the way of silent sympathy.

They were always together, and of the greatest comfort to one another,
so that the "alley boys" (as they were called who lived by the
tenement-house in which Ned lived) used to cry, jeeringly, whenever the
little boy appeared for a breath of air, "How are you, Ned, and how is
your dog?" or, to vary it occ