your room-mate has not come, I will help you this morning, so
you will not have to make it all alone; but perhaps you know how to
make a bed, so that you would just as soon make it by yourself."

Maude lifted her face, her eye flashing through her tears.

"I don't know how to make a bed," she answered. "I never made a bed.
My mamma has a servant make them at home, and she never had me do such
a thing. I don't want to know how to make it, nor to do anything else.
I want to go home. I am packing my trunk."

"But you can't go home, you know, my dear," said Mrs. Boardman,
pleasantly. "I know just how you feel. When I was a little girl about
your age I went away from home for a few weeks, and I am afraid I was
n't very brave about it."

"Did you go to school?" asked Maude.

"No, but I will tell you where I went while we are making the bed. Now
you take that side of the sheet, that is the way, and draw it up so,
and tuck it in snugly, so your toes won't peep out in the night. Well,
I was going to tell you how I happened to go away from home. One day
when I came home from school, my father met me down by the gate and he
told me that my little brother had the scarlet fever and the doctor
thought that perhaps I might not have it, too, if they sent me right
away, so I was to go to board with an old lady about ten miles away who
was willing to take care of me. He had the carriage all ready,--now
the blanket, dear; that's right,--and a bundle with the dresses in that
I should want for a few weeks, and before I knew it I was on my way. I
could n't even say good-by to my mother, for she was with my brother."

"And were you homesick?" asked Maude.

"Yes, indeed," answered Mrs. Boardman. "I cried and cried the first
night, and I thought I would surely walk home the very first thing in
the morning. I did not care whether I had the scarlet fever or not, if
I might only go home; but when morning came I remembered what my father
had said, when he bade me good-by, and so I changed my mind, and
stayed."

"What had he said?" asked Maude, helping to turn the top of the sheet
over, and quite forgetting, in her interest in the story, that she had
not intended to make the bed.

"He had said when he kissed me good-by, 'Now I know that you will be
very homesick, Eliza, and will want to come home a good many times, but
I know that you are mother's brave, helpful little maid, and that I can
trust you to stay here until brother