t be put to bed. Ask if you sleep with me."

"No, missy," said the nurse; "you are to share this young lady's
room"--designating me.

"I wish you, ma'am, good-night," said the little creature to Mrs.
Bretton; but she passed me mute.

"Good-night, Polly," I said.

"No need to say good-night, since we sleep in the same chamber," was the
reply.

Paulina Home's father was obliged to travel to recruit his health, and
her mother being dead, Mrs. Bretton had offered to take temporary charge
of the child.

During the two months Paulina stayed with us, the one member of the
household who reconciled her to absence from her father was John Graham
Bretton, Mrs. Bretton's only child, a handsome, whimsical youth of
sixteen. He began by treating her with mock seriousness as a person of
consideration, and before long was more than the Grand Turk in her
estimation; indeed, when a letter came from her father on the Continent,
asking that his little girl might join him there, we wondered how she
would take the news. I found her in the drawing-room engaged with a
picture-book.

"Miss Snowe," said she, "this is a wonderful book. It was given me by
Graham. It tells of distant countries."

"Polly," I interrupted, "should you like to travel?"

"Not just yet," was the prudent answer; "but perhaps when I am grown a
woman I may travel with Graham."

"But would you like to travel now if your papa was with you?"

"What is the good of talking in that silly way?" said she. "What is papa
to you? I was just beginning to be happy."

Then I told her of the letter, and the tidings kept her serious the
whole day. When Graham came home in the evening, she whispered, as she
heard him in the hall: "Tell him by-and-by; tell him I am going."

But Graham, who was preoccupied about some school prize, had to be told
twice before the news took proper hold of his attention. "Polly going?"
he said. "What a pity! Dear little Mouse, I shall be sorry to lose her;
she must come to us again."

On going to bed, I found the child wide awake, and in what she called
"dreadful misery!"

"Paulina," I said, "you should not grieve that Graham does not care for
you so much as you care for him. It must be so."

Her questioning eyes asked why.

"Because he is a boy and you are a girl; he is sixteen and you are only
six; his nature is strong and gay, and yours is otherwise."

"But I love him so much. He should love me a little."

"He does. He is fond of you;