the wronged heart close
against her own, the keen remorse of her soul bursts forth in a low moan
of irrepressible anguish:

'Oh, my child! my little, little, little child!'

Studying the face bent over him as children learn to study the faces of
those whom they have reason to fear, whose kindness is at best
capricious, and finding nothing but sorrow and tenderness in it, he
began to fear it less: thankful even for a brief season of kindness, the
solitary child laid the pale cheek close against his mother's, and
twined the thin arms about her neck. It was a strange and blissful
sensation for that mother to feel them clinging there. In her softened
mood it made the tears fall hot and fast, to think how strange it was.

'What made Harry think of coming to see ma to-day?' she said at last,
brushing them hurriedly away.

'A lady gave me that flower, mamma, and told me to bring it to you.'

A pause and a closer pressure--then she questioned nervously:

'What lady is it, Harry? Where does she live? How came you to know her,
darling?'

Harry hesitated. He noticed the dark shadow that swept across her face
at every reference to his new-found friend, and, with a child's
intuitive perception, he saw the subject gave her pain. Striving with
ready tact to draw her attention from it to himself, he went back to the
beginning, to give her a sort of history of how he came to form the
acquaintance.

'Mamma,' he said timidly, twining his arms still closer around her neck,
and speaking in a slow, hesitating way, as if he feared that this would
give her pain also, 'our house, you know, is a very lonesome place. Oh,
so _very_ lonesome!--just like a day when the sun won't shine, and the
rain comes dark and slow. Well, ma, it was always bad enough, but when
Charley went away to school, and you stayed up here more than ever, and
Betty got crosser than ever, you can't think _how_ lonesome it was! Pa
used to bring me playthings at first, but I felt so bad I couldn't play
with them. I felt all the time as if I wanted something, and,' glancing
piteously up into his mother's face, and laying his little hand upon his
heart, 'as if I was _so hungry here_. Well, I used to climb up at the
window and watch the people going by, and wonder and wonder what the
matter was.' He waited as if half expecting an answer; but a stifled sob
was the only reply. 'Looking out the window and seeing other people, I
found out after a while that we were different