“Wall,” answered Judith, “I guess you won’t have that to do here; for one night when some of the neighbors were in, I heard Miss Mason tell ’em that she got you to read to her and wait on her.  And then she said something about your not having an equal chance with your sister.  You hain’t but one, now t’other’s dead, have you?”

Mary replied in the negative, and Judith continued:  “Wall, now, you’ve got over the first on’t, I reckon you’se glad the baby’s dead, for she must have been kind of a bother, wasn’t she?”

Instantly Mary’s thoughts flew back to an empty cradle, and again a little golden head was pillowed upon her breast, as often in times past it had been, and as it would never be again.  Covering her face with her hands, she sobbed, “Oh, Allie, Allie!  I wish she hadn’t died.”

Judith looked on in amazement, and for want of something better to do, placed a fresh stick of wood in the stove, muttering to herself.  “Now I never!  I might of knew I didn’t know what to say.  What a pity Harry died.  I’ll give her that big ginger snap the minute it’s baked.  See if I don’t.”

Accordingly, when the snap was done, Judith placed it in Mary’s hands, bidding her eat it quick, and then go up and see the nice chamber Mrs. Mason had arranged for her.

“If you please,” said Mary, rapidly shifting the hot cake from one hand to the other,—­“if you please, I had rather go up now, and eat the cake when it is cool.”

“Come, then,” said Judith; and leading the way, she conducted Mary up the staircase, and through a light, airy hall to the door of a small room, which she opened, saying “Look, ain’t it pretty?”

But Mary’s heart was too full to speak, and for several minutes she stood silent.  With the exception of her mother’s pleasant parlor in Old England, she had never before seen any thing which seemed to her so cosy and cheerful as did that little room, with its single bed, snowy counterpane, muslin curtains, clean matting, convenient toilet table, and what to her was fairer than all the rest, upon the mantel-piece there stood two small vases, filled with sweet spring flowers, whose fragrance filled the apartment with delicious perfume.  All this was so different from the bare walls, uncovered floors, and rickety furniture of the poor-house, that Mary trembled lest it should prove a dream, from which erelong she would awake.

“Oh, why is Mrs. Mason so kind to me?” was her mental exclamation; and as some of our readers may ask the same question, we will explain to them that Mrs. Mason was one of the few who “do to others as they would others should do to them.”