tisfaction. I says:

"'I don't see what's to stop you, Myron Briggs. The goodness knows your
loaves are small enough to go through the keyhole.' And he didn't have
nothin' more to say to me."

"Why, I think that's very funny," said Tess, in her sober way. "I'll
tell that to Mrs. Eland. Maybe it will amuse her."

But on the next occasion when the two younger Corner House girls went to
the hospital, Tess did not try to cheer the matron's spirits by
repeating Mrs. Adams's joke on the baker.

Mrs. Eland had been crying. Even usually unobservant Dot noticed it. Her
eyes were red and her face pale and drawn. The pretty pink of her cheeks
and the ready twinkle in her gray eyes, were missing.

On the table by the matron's side were some faded old letters--quite a
bundle of them, in fact--tied with a faded tape. They were docketed
carefully on their ends with ink that had yellowed with age.

"These are letters from my uncle--'Lemon' Aden, as our little Dot called
him," Mrs. Eland said, with a sad smile. "To my--my poor father. Those
letters he put into my hand to take care of when we knew that awful fire
that destroyed most of our city, was going to sweep away our home.

"I took the letters and Teeny by the hand----"

"Was Teeny your sister's name, Mrs. Eland?" asked Tess, deeply
interested.

"So we called her," the matron said. "She was such a little fairy! As
small and delicate as Dot, here. Only she was light--a regular
milk-and-rose complexion and with red-gold hair."

"Like Tess' teacher's hair?" asked Dot, curiously. "She's got red hair."

"Oh, goodness!" cried Tess, "she's not pretty. That's sure, if her hair
is red!"

"Teeny's hair was lovely," said Mrs. Eland, ruminatively. "I can
remember just how she looked. I was but four years older than she; but I
was a big girl."

"You mean when that awful fire came?" asked Tess.

"Yes, my dear. Father told me to take care of these letters; they were
important. And to keep tight hold of Teeny's hand."

"And didn't you?" asked Dot, to whose thoroughly Sunday-school-trained
mind, all punishment directly followed disobedience.

"Oh, yes. I did as he told me. He went back into the house to get
mother. She was an invalid, you know."

"Like Mrs. Buckham," suggested Tess.

A spasm of pain crossed the hospital matron's face, and she turned away
for a moment. After a little she continued her story.

"And then the fire came so suddenly that it swallowed the house righ