The Old Homestead. Ann S. Stephens

and that some rents in her old calico frock had been neatly mended.

      "What is your name?" she said, gently taking the child's hand and drawing her into the bed-room, "we have not asked your name yet, little girl."

      "Mary Fuller, that is my name ma'am," replied the child, in her sweet, low voice.

      "And have you got a mother?"

      "I don't know," faltered the child, and a spot of crimson sprang into her pinched cheek.

      "Don't know!"

      "Please not to ask me about it," said the child, meekly. "I don't like to talk about my mother."

      "But your father," said Mrs. Chester, remarking the color that glowed with such unnatural brightness on the child's face with a thrill of pain, for it seemed to her as if a corpse had blushed.

      "My father! Oh, he is dead."

      The color instantly went out from her cheek, like a flash of fire suddenly extinguished there, and the child clasped her hands in a sort of thoughtful ecstasy, as if the mention of her father's name had lifted her soul to a communion with the dead.

      Mrs. Chester sat down by a bureau, and searched for one of Isabel's night-gowns in the drawer, now and then casting wistful glances on her singular guest.

      "Come," she said, gently, after a few minutes had elapsed, "let me take off your frock, then say your prayers and go to bed."

      "I have said my prayers," replied the child, lifting her eyes with a look that thrilled through and through Mrs. Chester. "When I think of my father, then I always say the prayers that he taught me, over in my heart."

      "Then you loved your father?"

      "Loved him!" replied the child, with a look of touching despondency. "My dear dead father—did you ask me if I loved him? What else in the wide, wide world had I to love?"

      "Your mother," said Mrs. Chester.

      That flush of crimson shot over the child's face again, and bowing her head with a look of the keenest anguish, she faltered out,

      "My mother!"

      "Well, my poor child," said Mrs. Chester, compassionating the strange feeling whose source she could only guess at, "I will not ask any more questions to-night. Keep up a good heart. You are almost an orphan, and God takes care of little orphans, you know."

      "Oh, yes, God will take care of me," answered the child, turning her large eyes downward upon her person, with a look that said more plainly than words, "helpless and ugly as I am."

      "It is the helpless—it is children whom our Saviour—you know about our Saviour?"

      "Oh, yes, I know."

      "Well, it was such little helpless creatures as you are whom our

       Saviour meant, when he said, 'Of such is the kingdom of Heaven.'"

      "Yes, such as I am, ma'am."

      The child again glanced at her person, and then with a look of tearful humility at Mrs. Chester.

      Mrs. Chester bent over the drawer she was searching, to conceal her tears; there was something strangely pathetic in the child's looks and words.

      "I thought," said the child, lifting her face and pointing to little Isabel, with a look of thrilling admiration, "I thought when I came in here, that Heaven must be full of little children like her."

      "And why like her?"

      "Because she looks in her sleep like the picture which I have seen of Heaven, where beautiful, curly-headed children just like her, lie dreaming on the clouds."

      "Then you think she is like those little angels?" said Mrs. Chester, unable to suppress a feeling of maternal pride, and smiling through her tears as she gazed on her daughter's beauty.

      "I never saw an ugly little girl in those pictures in my whole life, and I have looked for one a great many times," said the child, sadly.

      "Yes, but these pictures are only according to the artist's fancy—they are not the real Heaven."

      "I know; but then those who make these pictures do not so much as fancy a little girl like—like me, among the angels."

      "But I can fancy them there," said Mrs. Chester, carried away by the strange language of the child—"remember, little girl, that it is our souls—the spirit that makes us love and think—which God takes home to Heaven."

      "I know," said the little girl, shaking her head with a mournful smile, "but she would not like to leave all those curls and that red upon her mouth behind her, would she?"

      Mrs. Chester shook her head and tried to smile; the child puzzled her with these singular questions.

      "And I—I should not like either, to leave my body behind!"

      "Indeed—why not, little girl?" said Mrs. Chester, amazed.

      "Oh, we have suffered so much together, my soul and this poor body!" replied the child, sadly.

      "This is all very strange and very mournful," murmured Mrs. Chester, deeply moved. But she checked herself, and drawing the child toward her, began to untie her dress. A faint exclamation of surprise and pity broke from her lips as she loosened the garment and observed that it was the only one which the little creature had on.

      "Oh, this is destitution," she said, covering her eyes with one hand as little Mary crouched down and put on the nightdress. "What if she, my own child, were left thus,"—and dashing aside her tears, Mrs. Chester went to the bed and covered the little Isabel with kisses.

      The strange child stood by in her long night-gown. A smile of singular pleasure lay about her mouth as she attempted with her little pale hands to arrange the plaited ruffles around her neck and bosom. Drawing close to Mrs. Chester, she took hold of her dress, and looked earnestly in her face. Mrs. Chester turned away her head; her lips were yet tremulous with the caresses which she had bestowed upon her child; and it seemed as if those large eyes reproached her.

      "You are cold," she said, looking down upon the child.

      "No, ma'am."

      "Well, what is it you want—the milk I promised you?"

      "No, not that. I will give up the milk, if you will only—only"—

      "Only what, child?"

      "If you will only kiss my forehead just once as you kissed hers," answered the child. And after one yearning look, her head drooped upon her bosom. She seemed completely overpowered by her own boldness.

      Mrs. Chester stood gazing on her in silent surprise. There was something in the request that startled and pained her. Here stood a poor, miserable orphan, begging with a voice of unutterable desolation for a few moments of that affection which she saw profusely lavished upon a happier child. Her silence seemed to strike the little girl with terror. She lifted her eyes with a look of humble deprecation, and said:

      "Nobody has kissed me since my father died!"

      Mrs. Chester conquered the repugnance, that spite of herself arose in her heart, at the thought of chilling the lips yet warm from the rosy mouth of her child, by contact with anything less dear, and bending down, she pressed a tremulous kiss upon the uplifted forehead of the little stranger.

      Mary drew an uneven breath; an expression of exquisite content spread over her face, and giving her hand to Mrs. Chester, she allowed herself to be lead toward the pretty couch, made up so temptingly in a corner of the outer room.

CHAPTER IV.

       Table of Contents

      THE MIDNIGHT CONSULTATION

      Oh, it is