all shoulders in doing so. She
was the picture of a little elf that might vanish if any one stirred.
She looked at Biddy, and said, "Is that gal in the bed the hospital gal
what guv ye the flowers?"

Biddy said, "Yes."

"What's matter of 'er?"

"She has been sick a long time," said Mrs. Raynor.

"Stay in bed all time?" asked Katy, still looking at Biddy.

"Oh yes; I shall never get up any more," said Jenny Raynor. "Will you
come up here, close to me, little girl?" Katy came forward a little.
"Miss Kennedy says you like to run about a great deal," said Jenny; "I
used to like that very much."

Katy came close to the bed. She took her hands out of her pockets; they
were full of pea-nuts. She laid them on the bed, and nodded to Biddy.
"I'll stay here," said she.

And Katy Kegan kept her word. She didn't get over her faults right off.
She had a hard fight with them; but for the first time in her life she
tried hard to get rid of them, and soon showed she had great strength to
do what she had made up her mind to do.

But Miss Kennedy was right. All Katy had needed was to _be needed_. This
was her "weight."

She was the very best thing that could have been brought into Jenny
Raynor's sad and shut-up life. Jenny was a good little girl, but no
little child can be easily content and cheerful who can not go out into
the sunlight, and enjoy the sweet full life of the birds and flowers,
and the merry games with other little girls and boys. It is very hard
for a child to lie always in bed, and be shut out from all other
children's lives. Now Katy Kegan was so wild, so merry, so constantly
full and running over with bright ideas of how to get fun out of
everything and anything, that she was a whole play-ground in her one
little self; and she brought all this life into the room where Jenny
lay, and made a new world for Jenny there. Katy was as good as a
theatre, for she imitated people, and did it quite wonderfully, so that
Jenny could tell just whom she meant; that is, if she had ever seen the
person Katy was taking off. And Katy would show her all that she had
seen or noticed on the street, in just this way by imitating, so that
Jenny seemed almost to make new acquaintances with people whom she had
never really seen, by means of Katy's droll mimicry. When Katy saw how
all her pranks and fun made Jenny laugh and look so pleased, she took
good care to find out some fresh thing to amuse her with whenever she
went out.

Whe