e lay Mandoline and Dotty side by side on the buffalo skins; and the
Jewish mother stood in her short night-dress, with a tallow candle in
her hand, and gazed at them tenderly. That horrible dream had stirred
the fountain of love in her heart They made a beautiful picture, and
there was no stain of evil in their young faces. It seems as if the
angel of Sleep flies away with loads of naughtiness, for he always
leaves sleeping children looking very innocent. But, alas! he brings
back next morning all he carried away, for the little ones wake up with
just as bad hearts as ever.

"What sweet little creeters!" said Mrs. Rosenberg, bending over and
kissing them both; "just like seraphims right out of the clouds."

Softly, madam! If a drop of tallow should fall on them from that candle,
they might take to themselves wings and fly away. That was what Cupid did
in the fairy story, and you are in fairy-land yourself, Mrs. Rosenberg;
you are still half asleep.

She looked at Mandoline's perfect little hand, lying outside the
patchwork quilt.

"It doesn't seem, now," murmured the mother, with a tear in her eye,
"that I could ever whack them pretty fingers with a thimble. I do believe
if I wasn't pestered to death with everything under the sun to do, I
might be kind o' half-way decent."

Perhaps the poor woman told the truth; I think she did.

Then, as she stood there, she breathed a little prayer without any
words,--not for herself--for she did not suppose God would hear
_that_,--but for her children that she "banged about" every day of
their lives.

She was not really a Jewess, for she had no religion of any sort, and
never went to church; but I am sure of one thing: little overworked
Mandoline would have loved her mother better if she had known she ever
prayed for her at all.

In the morning, Mrs. Rosenberg was just as hard and sharp as ever; she
could not stop to be pleasant. Dotty longed to get away; but she was an
exile from her own dear home; whither could she turn?

It was a cold morning, and the children ran down stairs half dressed and
shivering. Dotty spread out her stiff, red fingers before the
cooking-stove like the sticks of a fan. "O, hum!" thought she, drearily,
"I wish I could see the red coals in our grate. My mamma wouldn't let me
go to the table with such hair as this. Prudy'd say 'twas 'harum scarum.'
But I can't brush it with a tooth-comb, 'thout any glass--so there!"

Dotty's curly hair looked quit