Billy had not come, but the pleasant-looking woman had succeeded in making friends with Alice, and as Mary passed out of the yard she saw her little sister spatting the window sill, and apparently well pleased with her new nurse.  Scarcely were they out of sight of the house, when Sal, seating herself upon a large stone, commenced divesting her feet of her shoes and stockings.

“What are you doing?” asked Mary, in great surprise.

“I guess I know better than to wear out my kid slippers when I’ve got no Willie’s father to buy me any more,” answered Sal.  “I’m going barefoot until I reach the river bridge, and then I shall put them on again.”

The shoes and stockings being carefully rolled up in a paper which Sal produced from her pocket, they walked briskly forward, and reached the village some time before the first bell rang for church.

“Come down this street, please,” said Mary to her companion, who with slippers readjusted and umbrella hoisted was mincing along, courtesying to every one she met, and asking them how they did—­“Come down this street; I want to see my old home.”

Sal readily complied, saying as they drew near the low brown house, in which a strange family were now living, “There is nothing very elegant in the architecture of this dwelling.”

Mary made no reply.  With her head resting upon the garden fence, and one hand clasped around a shrub which Franky had set out, she was sobbing as though her heart would break.  Very gently Sal laid her hand on Mary’s shoulder, and led her away, saying, “What would I not have given for such a command of tears when Willie’s father died.  But I could not weep; and my tears all turned to burning coals, which set my brain on fire.”

The next time Mary raised her head they were opposite Mrs. Bender’s, where Sal declared it her intention to stop.  As they were passing up to the side door, Billy, who heard their footsteps, came out, and shaking hands with Mary, and trying hard to keep from laughing at the wonderful courtesy, which Sal Furbush made him.  On entering the house they found Mrs. Bender flat on her back, the pillow pulled out from under her head, and the bed clothes tucked closely up under her chin.

“Mother was so sick I couldn’t come,” said Billy to Mary, while Sal, walking up to the bedside, asked, “Is your sickness unto death, my good woman?”

“Oh, I am afeard not,” was the feeble response.  “Folks with my difficulty suffer for years.”

Mary looked inquiringly at Billy, and a smile but little according with his mother’s seeming distress parted his lips as he whispered, “She was reading yesterday about a woman that had been bed-ridden with a spinal difficulty, and now she declares that she too ’has got a spine in her back,’ though I fancy she would be in a pretty predicament without one.  But where did you get that fright of a bonnet?” he continued.  “It’s like looking down a narrow lane to see your face.”