nd fatherly anxieties;
she lived on peacefully in the room where she was born.

But you never would have known that room; for Mr. Bird had a great deal
of money, and though he felt sometimes as if he wanted to throw it all
in the ocean, since it could not buy a strong body for his little girl,
yet he was glad to make the place she lived in just as beautiful as it
could be made.

The room had been extended by the building of a large addition that
hung out over the garden below, and was so filled with windows that it
might have been a conservatory. The ones on the side were thus still
nearer the little Church of our Saviour than they used to be; those in
front looked out on the beautiful harbor, and those in the back
commanded a view of nothing in particular but a little
alley--nevertheless, they were pleasantest of all to Carol, for the
Ruggles family lived in the alley, and the nine little, middle-sized
and big Ruggles children were the source of inexhaustible interest.

The shutters could all be opened and Carol could take a real sun-bath
in this lovely glass-house, or they could all be closed when the dear
head ached or the dear eyes were tired. The carpet was of soft grey,
with clusters of green bay and holly leaves. The furniture was of
white wood, on which an artist had painted snow scenes and Christmas
trees and groups of merry children ringing bells and singing carols.

Donald had made a pretty, polished shelf and screwed it on to the
outside of the footboard, and the boys always kept this full of
blooming plants, which they changed from time to time; the head-board,
too, had a bracket on either side, where there were pots of maidenhair
ferns.

Love-birds and canaries hung in their golden houses in the windows, and
they, poor caged things, could hop as far from their wooden perches as
Carol could venture from her little white bed.

On one side of the room was a bookcase filled with hundreds--yes, I
mean it--with hundreds and hundreds of books; books with gay-colored
pictures, books without; books with black and white outline-sketches,
books with none at all; books with verses, books with stories, books
that made children laugh, and some that made them cry; books with words
of one syllable for tiny boys and girls, and books with words of
fearful length to puzzle wise ones.

This was Carol's "Circulating Library." Every Saturday she chose ten
books, jotting their names down in a little diary; into these