ne of her woolly tails.

There was a sudden sound of snipping steel, and then Janey continued,--

"I sen' you a plat of my hair, an' I wants you to sen' me one of yours;
an'--an--'" Janey hesitated, while she put on her cap once more.

"Well, what next?" asked Allie, secretly wondering, as she glanced at
the sable tress before her, why each could not retain his own hair,
since the two locks would probably be so much alike that only the keen
eye of an expert or a lover could distinguish between them.

"So no mo' now," dictated Janey. "Give my love to Emma Digson, an' Joe
Harrison, an' my mother, an' tell little Bill he mus' be a good boy, an'
tell Sarah Johnson"--Here followed a list of greetings and messages, as
long as those at the end of the Pauline epistles.

Allie was still toiling her way through them, making conscientious
attempts to discover the proper spelling of names, when she heard the
front door open and shut. A moment later, Howard appeared in the
kitchen, very pale and with trembling lips.

"Come here a minute, Allie," he said, in a tone of command so unlike his
usual manner that his sister started up at the first word.

"What is it?" she demanded hastily. "What do you want of me?"

But Howard had already hurried back to the parlor. She followed him,
with a dull, cold feeling about her heart, as she became more and more
convinced that there was some trouble. As she reached the parlor door,
she drew back, for a moment, in alarm. On the sofa lay Charlie, with his
handkerchief tied over the upper part of his face, and his cheeks and
lips as white as Howard's had been. The next instant she sprang forward
to his side, crying,--

"O Charlie, what has happened? Are you hurt? What is it?"

With a strong effort, the boy steadied his voice enough to say quietly,
as he stretched out his hand towards the spot where he had heard her
drop down on her knees beside the sofa,--

"'Tisn't much, Allie; so don't get rattled. Howard'll tell you about
it." And he paused abruptly, biting his lip to keep from crying out with
pain.

"We were playing ball, and Charlie went to catch. He muffed, somehow,
and the ball hit him in the eye; it smashed his glasses, and they've cut
his eyes some," explained Howard, in a hurried, breathless tone, while
he tramped nervously up and down the room.

"What can we do? If mamma were only here, Howard! Is it very bad,
Charlie?" And for a moment Allie's head dropped beside her cousin's