it really true that Maggie had done a beautiful deed by giving his white and pretty darlings their liberty in a country wood? How Jo's eyes shone when she spoke, and how ecstatically she looked at

near acquaintance proved more fascinating than dreadful, and on their way home Maggie pronounced in favor of the Zoo, said she would certainly like to go there again, and thought that on t

eir tea that evening, "I wonder why Susy cares to go out into the streets and sing and play a f

red hard

know what she does

f play," said Maggie, o

, Poor Susy goes out and plays the tambourine and dances and sings because she wants pennies-pennies to buy bread for Jo and for

me quite pale; she dropped the delicious bread-and-butter and marmal

cost half a crown?"

you hear her say so? She kno

me slight knowledge of figures. Hitherto she had been shy of revealing any of her great ignorance to Ralph, b

there were thirty pennies in tha

annoyed me a good deal, Maggie, but I've made up my mind to say nothing more on that subject. I dare say you, too, will try to be a good girl when you're with mother. Well, what was I saying? Oh! about Susy's pennies. With what I gave her and what Jo collected she has got fourteen. Take fourteen f

ther, and she's a lot

eyes f

y mother, that she's the very, very nicest lady in the world. Oh, I

gures or read a word of the queen's English, or have any pennies in her purse. Maggie was only the little cousin whom Ralph rather despised, who was nobody at all in his estimation compared to Jo-Jo, who was so humble, and so very poor. Maggie's feelings had been greatly moved about Jo and Susy; she had longed beyond words to put the necessary number of pennies into Susy's hand, and to tell her to go out and buy that tambourine, on which her heart was set, without a moment's delay. She had wished this when she only supposed that Susy wanted the tambourine to amuse herself. Ho

nd soothed and petted her with many loving words. Maggie thought Waters a most delicious person, and soon wiped away her tears, and began to smile once again. Waters was judicious enough to ask no questions about the tears, and, when they were over, to forget that they ever existed. She took Maggie into

ing as a great, tremen

hat what's confided to me is a secret from that day forward, and no mistake. What's the color to

ed and clapp

d of any one so ignorant as me. I'll be eight years old before very long, and I can't read, and I

rs kept gazing at her with a mo

ly. "Well, Miss Maggie dear, where'

e secret is that I don't kn

earn all in good time. You're nothing but a young ch

d run and jump and skip, and even ride!-it was really rather silly to speak of her as a very young child. However, now she was so soothed by "Waters' gentle words and Waters' petting that

ame to have a great big girl who could neither spell nor write. My tastes always lay in the needlework line. Since I was a little tot I was forever with a bit of sewing in my hand; I'd hem, and I'd back-stitch, and I'd top-sew whenever I had the chance. W

in them. "I hate plain sewing worser even than I do reading; I hate it even worser t

as another. You'll come to learn the comfort of it, for of all the soothers for

ck to the subject which most interested her by asking if she had also found the study of figures very good

lmer is as honest and hard-working a body as ever walked, and that little Jo is a real angel, and as the poor things must live somehow, why, I suppose Susy had

ungry. She has got fourteen pennies, and she can't get anything to eat until she has thirty. Oh, Waters! if you do k

s lau

She is a sturdy little piece, and I don't believe she denies

?" insisted Maggie. "Ralph only gets a penny a day; how many

it by our fingers. Ten fingers first, five on each hand. Bear that in your mind, Miss Maggie. Add ten to fourteen, makes twenty-four; come now, I'm getting on, but that isn't thirty, is it, da

om, and Maggie's conversation with the good-natur

tiny room which led out of Miss Grey's, and she now jumped up and went to the window. What was her amazement to see just under the window, walking leisurely across the road, one of the objects of her last vivid dream, Susy Aylmer herself! Susy's very stout little form was seen crossing the street and coming right up to the Grenvilles' house. Maggie was charmed to see her, and took not an instant in making up her mind to improve the occasion. She knocked violently on th

! Susy!" sh

ly sent to fetch them. She was much amazed to see the pretty little country lady calling to her so vehemently; she was also delighted, and came to the foot of the hall-door steps, and looked up at Maggie with a very eager face. F

a Contemplative

nd truly I would, but I haven't got nothing at all. Father has-father's ever so

basket of broken meat in a careless manner, as though it did not account for any

ant to do this as much for Jo as for you. Once I didn't like Jo at all, but now I do love her; she looks so beautiful and so sweet. I don't think

holler inside. I am now, missie, really. It's an awfully empty feel

help you!" conti

of dustpans and brushes, and of industrious maids app

em a shame as you shouldn't have no money, for you would know how to pervide for t

ted Maggie. "How, Susy

t nothing as you cou

ot. "Oh, dear, no, I haven't nothing at all t

ress as you didn't want. Your clothes is very 'andsome, and something as you didn't gr

e eyes began

two long white feathers; I like it very much, but I could do without it, 'cause I've got my little common garden

two eyes on such a beauty. But it seems a pity to take it away from you, missie dea

, 'cause father likes me in it; and 'sides, I've gathered strawberries in it, an

ttle girls were to meet each other at the same hour on the following morning, and Sus

er of two little brothers, who also belonged to a very easily found class of human beings; she was

finement; she had heaven-born beauty. Her ideas were above her class; her lit

country days. Her father had been like her, refined in feature and poetic in temperament. Shortly after Jo's birth the Aylmers had come to London, poverty and all its attendant ills had ove

ore the rule than the exception. She turned round, faced her position, and managed after a fashion to provide for her children. Many visitors came to

like a bit of sunshine in the room. Trouble, bless her! she a trouble! Why, don't she take the trouble off my shoulders more than any one else ever did or ever will do? Ask me who never yet spoke a cross word, and I'll tell you it's that little pale girl who can never lift herself off the sofa. Ask me who keeps the peace with the others, and I'll

, who were the two youngest of the family, had a habit of giving her their absolute confidence. They not only told her of their good deeds, but of their naughty ones. They had a habit of po

dainties of life, was, of course, known by Jo. No one had ever been more interested in the purchase of a musical instrument than she was in the collecting of that hoard which was to result in the buying of Susy's tambourine. Jo was a delightful and sympathizing listener, and Susy liked nothing better than to kneel by her sofa

the wildest spirits, and indulged all day long in fantastic day-dreams. Jo was having a bad day of much pain and suffering, but Susy's brightness

how can you tell but that Master Ralph'll get tired of saving up all his pennies for you? Hanyhow,

you tell me what to do with it when we get it. S'pose now-oh, do be quiet, Ben and Bob-s'pose now I 'ad the tambourine, and it wor a beauty; well, s'pos

red about the face, jus

s; I'm nothing but little Susy Aylmer, but I takes. The crowd collects, and they laugh, and they likes it, and then, the ladies and the gents, they go by, so they give me their pennies-lots of 'em; and one old gent, he have no change, and h

already in Susy's possession. Bob, to relieve his over-charged feelings, instant

ful day-dream, Susy

what we'll do with it. Let's all sit quiet, and shut our heyes, and l

t before her; her large violet-tinted eyes began to see visions, nowhere to be perceived within that commonplace, whitewashed room; the chil

she spoke slowly,

went away from the houses, and the streets, and we left the noise ahind us, and the dust and the dirt ahind us, and we got out into fields. Fields, with trees a-growing, and real yellow buttercups looking up at you saucy and perky like, and dear little white daisies, like bits of snow with yellow eyes. S'pose we all got out there, right in the fields, and we seed a little brook running and rushing past

ly, but Susy after a time began to cut up the day-dream; while Jo thought of angels as the only possible culmination to such