ldly to the door and
knocked upon it. Instantly she heard Miss Barbara start and push back
her chair.

"What are you doing up so late?" cried Willy, cheerfully. "Don't you
feel well?"

"Oh, yes," replied the other, "I accidentally fell asleep while reading,
but I will go to bed instantly."

The mind of Willy Croup was a very small one and had room in it for but
one idea at a time. For a good while she lay putting ideas into this
mind, and then taking them out again. Having given place to the
conviction that the Thorpedykes were in a very bad way indeed,--for if
that bill should be collected, they would not have much left but
themselves, and Mr. Bullock was a man who did collect when he said he
would,--she was obliged to remove this conviction, which made her cry,
in order to consider plans of relief; and while she was considering
these plans, one at a time, she dropped asleep.

The first thing she thought of when she opened her eyes in the morning
was poor Miss Barbara in the next room, and that dreadful bill; and
then, like a flash of lightning, she thought of a good thing to do for
the Thorpedykes. The project which now laid itself out, detail after
detail, before her seemed so simple, so sensible, so absolutely wise and
desirable in every way, that she got up, dressed herself with great
rapidity, and went in to see Mrs. Cliff.

That lady was still asleep, but Willy awakened her, and sat on the side
of the bed. "Do you know what I think?" said Willy.

"How in the world should I!" said Mrs. Cliff. "Is it after
breakfast-time?"

"No," said Willy; "but it's this! What are you going to do in that big
house, with all the bedrooms, parlor, library, and so forth? You say
that you are going to have one room, and that I'm to have another, and
that we'll go into the old house to feel at home whenever we want to;
but I believe we'll be like a couple of flies in a barrel! You're going
to furnish your new house with everything but people! You ought to have
more people! You ought to have a family! That house will look funny
without people! You can't ask Mr. Burke, because it would be too queer
to have him come and live with us, and besides, he'll want a house of
his own. Why don't you ask the Thorpedykes to come and live with us?
Their roof is dreadfully out of repairs. I know to my certain knowledge
that they have to put tin wash-basins on every bed in the second story
when it rains, on account of the holes in the shingle