at her, and her eyes of love sharpened with inquiry. "Ain't
you hungry?" she said. Ellen shook her head. She was sitting at the
table in the dining-room, and her father, mother, and aunt were all
hovering about her, watching her. Some of the neighbor women were
also in the room, staring with a sort of deprecating tenderness of
curiosity.

"Do you feel sick?" Ellen's father inquired, anxiously.

"You don't feel sick, do you?" repeated her mother.

Ellen shook her head.

Just then Mrs. Zelotes Brewster came in with her
black-and-white-checked shawl pinned around her gaunt old face,
which had in it a strange softness and sweetness, which made Fanny
look at her again, after the first glance, and not know why.

"We've got our blessing back again, mother," said her son Andrew, in
a broken voice.

"But she won't eat her breakfast, now mother has gone and cooked it
for her, so nice, too," said Fanny, in a tone of confidence which
she had never before used towards Mrs. Zelotes.

"You don't feel sick, do you, Ellen?" asked her grandmother.

Ellen shook her head. "No, ma'am," said she.

"She says she don't feel sick, and she ain't hungry," Andrew said,
anxiously.

"I wonder if she would eat one of my new doughnuts. I've got some
real nice ones," said a neighbor--the stout woman from the next
house, whose breadth of body seemed to symbolize a corresponding
spiritual breadth of motherliness, as she stood there looking at the
child who had been lost and was found.

"Don't you want one of Aunty Wetherhed's nice doughnuts?" asked
Fanny.

"No; I thank you," replied Ellen. Eva started suddenly with an air
of mysterious purpose, opened a door, ran down cellar, and returned
with a tumbler of jelly, but Ellen shook her head even at that.

"Have you had your breakfast?" said Fanny.

Then Ellen was utterly quiet. She did not speak; she made no sign or
motion. She sat still, looking straight before her.

"Don't you hear, Ellen?" said Andrew. "Have you had your breakfast
this morning?"

"Tell Auntie Eva if you have had your breakfast," Eva said.

Mrs. Zelotes Brewster spoke with more authority, and she went
further.

"Tell grandmother if you have had your breakfast, and where you had
it," said she.

But Ellen was dumb and motionless. They all looked at one another.
"Tell Aunty Wetherhed: that's a good girl," said the stout woman.

"Where are those things she had when I first saw her?" asked Mrs.
Zelotes, suddenly. E