peaking
at once.

"Bring what you like and I'll hunt up my toys too. Ben is to come also,
and _his_ poodle is especially invited," added Miss Celia as Sancho
came and begged before her, feeling that some agreeable project was
under discussion.

"Thank you, miss. I told them you'd be willing they should come
sometimes. They like this place ever so much, and so do I," said Ben,
feeling that few spots combined so many advantages in the way of
climbable trees, arched gates, half-a-dozen gables, and other charms
suited to the taste of an aspiring youth who had been a flying Cupid at
the age of seven.

"So do I," echoed Miss Celia, heartily. "Ten years ago I came here a
little girl, and made lilac chains under these very bushes, and picked
chick-weed over there for my bird, and rode Thorny in his baby-wagon up
and down these paths. Grandpa lived here then and we had fine times;
but now they are all gone except us two."

"We haven't got any father either," said Bab, for something in Miss
Celia's face made her feel as if a cloud had come over the sun.

[Illustration: MISS CELIA AND HER LITTLE FRIENDS.]

"_I_ have a first-rate father, if I only knew where he'd gone to," said
Ben, looking down the path as eagerly as if some one waited for him
behind the locked gate.

"You are a rich boy, and you are happy little girls to have so good a
mother; I've found that out already," and the sun shone again as the
young lady nodded to the neat, rosy children before her.

"You may have a piece of her if you want to, 'cause you haven't got any
of your own," said Betty, with a pitiful look which made her blue eyes
as sweet as two wet violets.

"So I will! and you shall be my little sisters. I never had any, and
I'd love to try how it seems," and Miss Celia took both the chubby
hands in hers, feeling ready to love every one this first bright
morning in the new home which she hoped to make a very happy one.

Bab gave a satisfied nod, and fell to examining the rings upon the
white hand that held her own. But Betty put her arms about the new
friend's neck, and kissed her so softly that the hungry feeling in Miss
Celia's heart felt better directly, for this was the food it wanted,
and Thorny had not learned yet to return one half of the affection he
received. Holding the child close, she played with the yellow braids
while she told them about the little German girls in their funny
black-silk caps, short-waisted gowns and wooden shoes,