lace
was vacated it could be filled; was wanted, ten times over; and
Sulie Praile had been there a good while. If somebody would only
take her, as people were very ready to take--away to happy, simple,
comfortable country homes, for mere childhood's sake--the round,
rosy, strong, and physically perfect ones! But Sulie must be lifted
and tended; she must keep somebody at home to look after her; no one
could be expected to adopt a child like that.

Yet Hazel Ripwinkley thought they could be; thought, in her
straightforward, uncounting simplicity, that it was just the
natural, obvious, beautiful thing to do, to take her home--into a
real home--into pleasant family life; where things would not crowd;
where she could be mothered and sistered, as girls ought to be, when
there are so many nice places in the world, and not so many people
in them as there might be. When there could be so much visiting, and
spare rooms kept always in everybody's house, why should not
somebody who needed to, just come in and stay? What were the spare
places made for?

"We might have Sulie for this winter," said Mrs. Ripwinkley, at
last. "They would let her come to us for that time; and it would be
a change for her, and leave a place for others. Then if anything
made it impossible for us to do more, we should not have raised an
expectation to be disappointed. And if we can and ought to do more,
it will be shown us by that time more certainly."

She asked Miss Craydocke about it, when she came home from Z----
that fall. She had been away a good deal lately; she had been up to
Z---- to two weddings,--Leslie Goldthwaite's and Barbara Holabird's.
Now she was back again, and settled down.

Miss Craydocke thought it a good thing wisely limited.

"Sulie needs to be with older girls; there is no one in the Home to
be companion to her; the children are almost all little. A winter
here would be a blessing to her!"

"But the change again, if she should have to make it?" suggested
Mrs. Ripwinkley.

"Good things don't turn to bad ones because you can't have them any
more. A thing you're not fit for, and never ought to have had, may;
but a real good stays by; it overflows all the rest. Sulie Praile's
life could never be so poor again, after a winter here with you, as
it might be if she had never had it. If you'd like her, let her
come, and don't be a bit afraid. We're only working by inches, any
of us; like the camel's-hair embroiderers in China. But i