ome
time, and she was not kind to me, and so I felt I should pay her
something. And then I put a little white cross on _his_ grave before I
left him, lest he should think himself quite forgotten. It was all I
could do for him," concludes she, with another heavy sob that shakes
her slight frame.

Her heart seems broken! Clarissa, who by this time is dissolved in
tears, places her arms round her, and presses her lips to her cheek.

"Try, _try_ to be comforted," entreats she. "The world, they tell me,
is full of sorrow. Others have suffered, too. And nurse used to tell
me, long ago, that those who are unhappy in the beginning of their
lives are lucky ever after. Georgie, it may be so with you."

"It may," says Georgie, with a very faint smile; yet, somehow, she
feels comforted.

"Do you think you will be content here?" asks Clarissa, presently,
when some minutes have passed.

"I think so. I am sure of it. It is such a pretty place, and so unlike
the horrid little smoky town from which I have come, and to which"
(with a heavy sigh), "let us hope, I shall never return."

"Never do," says Clarissa giving her rich encouragement. "It is ever
so much nicer here." As she has never seen the smoky town in question,
this is a somewhat gratuitous remark. "And the children are quite
sweet, and very pretty; and the work won't be very much; and--and I am
only just, an easy walking-distance from you."

At this termination they both laugh.

Georgie seems to have forgotten her tears of a moment since, and her
passionate burst of grief. Her lovely face is smiling, radiant; her
lips are parted; her great blue eyes are shining. She is a warm
impulsive little creature, as prone to tears as to laughter, and with
a heart capable of knowing a love almost too deep for happiness, and
as surely capable of feeling a hatred strong and lasting.

The traces of her late emotion are still wet upon her cheeks. Perhaps
she knows it not, but, "like some dew-spangled flower, she shows more
lovely in her tears." She and Clarissa are a wonderful contrast.
Clarissa is slight and tall and calm; she, all life and brightness,
eager, excited, and unmindful of the end.

Cissy Redmond, at this juncture, summons up sufficient courage to open
the door and come in again. She ignores the fact of Georgie's red
eyes, and turns to Clarissa. She has Miss Peyton's small dog in her
arms,--the terrier, with the long and melancholy face, that goes by
the name of Bill