should be
trusted with. Would it suit thee to be my helper for a time?"

"Oh, indeed, and indeed," cried Sally, stopping to choke for an instant,
"I will so gladly and most faithfully do anything you may ask; and I
shall need nothing at present, I have clothes--"

"Tut, tut, child!" said Goodwife Kendall, with a smile. "No one should
work well to receive nothing in return, and I shall give thee two and
sixpence a week, both to teach thee how to use a little money wisely,
and also to pay for what I know thou wilt justly earn."

And seeing that Sally was at the point of bursting out crying, she
added, while turning toward the door:

"Come, now, Parson Kendall will send to Mistress Brace for such clothes
as you have bought for yourself, leaving all for which she has paid. It
will please me to clothe thee with what may be needful from time to
time. But there are dried berries to be picked over and put in soak
before being stewed for supper. Come and let me show thee how to prepare
them."

CHAPTER XVII.

THE SOLDIER'S CARD

"O Fairy! Fairy! is not this grand?"

Maid Sally stood in a little room, so neat, so prettily furnished, that
it was to her like waking up and finding one of her pleasant dreams come
true.

A cot with a real feather bed was in one corner, a small chest of
drawers with a mirror on it, a mirror in a square frame screwed into a
little stand, so she could bring it forward or push it back, was at one
side of the room; a small wooden rocking-chair stood by the window, and
a pretty painted wash-stand, with bowl and pitcher, a soap-dish, and a
saucer for brushes, was opposite the bed.

Sally looked with pleasure on the simple yet convenient things that she
never had had the use of before. Then she said:

"I feel as though these things fitted me. Yes, and even finer ones
might, too. Why is it I have such feelings always rising within me
whenever I look upon what is fine and would seem far above me?"

"I cannot tell you," said her Fairy.

"Did you notice," asked Sally, "what slipped from Mistress Cory Ann's
tongue? how she asked was I sure of being an American?"

"I noticed, surely," said the Fairy, "but many a vain and useless thing
will slip from the tongue of an angry woman. I think she meant but to
taunt you."

"Yet I wonder what she may know."

"It would be wiser to stop wondering," returned her Fairy.

And now it was not only a new home, but a new life that had come to the
pret