The sisters went into Fanny’s bedroom, and sat down on the edge of the bed, with their arms round each other.  “Oh, Fanny!” sobbed Eva; “poor, poor Fanny! if Andrew turns against you, I will stand by you as long as I live.  I will work my fingers to the bone to support you and Ellen.  I will never get married.  I will stay and work for you and her.  And I will never get mad with you again as long as I live, Fanny.  Oh, it was all my fault, every bit my fault, but, but—­” Eva’s voice broke; suddenly she clasped her sister tighter, and then she went down on her knees beside the bed, and hid her tangled head in her lap.  “Oh, Fanny,” she sobbed out miserably, “there ain’t much excuse for me, but there’s a little.  When Jim Tenny stopped goin’ with me last summer, my heart ’most broke.  I don’t care if you do know it.  That’s what made me so much worse than I used to be.  Oh, my heart ’most broke, Fanny!  He’s treated me awful, but I can’t get over it; and now little Ellen’s gone, and I drove her away!”

Fanny bent over her sister, and pressed her head close to her bosom.  “Don’t you feel so bad, Eva,” said she.  “You wasn’t any more to blame than I was, and we’ll stand by each other as long as we live.”

“I’ll work my fingers to the bone for you and Ellen, and I’ll never get married,” said Eva again.

Chapter IV

Ellen Brewster was two nights and a day at Cynthia Lennox’s, and no one discovered it.  All day the searching-parties passed the house.  Once Ellen was at the window, and one of the men looked up and saw her, and since his solicitude for the lost child filled his heart with responsiveness towards all childhood, he waved his hand and nodded, and bade another man look at that handsome little kid in the window.

“Guess she’s about Ellen’s size,” said the other.

“Shouldn’t wonder if she looked something like her,” said the first.

“Answers the description well enough,” said the other, “same light hair.”

Both of the men waved their hands to Ellen as they passed on, but she shrank back afraid.  That was about ten o’clock of the morning of the day after Miss Lennox had taken her into her house.  She had waked at dawn with a full realization of the situation.  She remembered perfectly all that had happened.  She was a child for whom there were very few half-lights of life, and no spiritual twilights connected her sleeping and waking hours.  She opened her eyes and looked around the room, and remembered how she had run away and how her mother was not there, and she remembered the strange lady with that same odd combination of terror and attraction and docility with which she had regarded her the night before.  It was a very cold morning, and there was a delicate film of frost on the windows between the sweeps of the muslin curtains, and the morning sun gave it a rosy glow and a crusting sparkle as of diamonds.  The sight of the frost had broken poor Andrew Brewster’s heart when he saw it, and reflected how it might have meant death to his little tender child out under the blighting fall of it, like a little house-flower.