air,
which he offered her, and sat down himself on a rough bench, with a
sorrowful, embarrassed expression on his pale, interesting features.
Ellen, still noticing Willie's painful confusion, knew not what to do
after placing her basket on the rude, wooden table, and began to regret
that she so strongly pressed an entrance.

"I told you you would be frightened," said the boy at length, in a
choking tone.

"O, I am not frightened!" returned Ellen, glad to speak now that he had
opened the way for her; "I am only sorry to find people living so
forlornly in our pretty, happy village. I thought you had a good nice
house to live in, for Mrs. Pimble said so, and that her husband rented it
to you for almost nothing, and that your mother--but I won't say any
more," said Ellen, stopping short in her discourse.

"Yes," said Willie, "tell me all she said, and then I will tell you
something."

"Well, then, she said your mother only went out washing to make folks
think she was needy, so they would give her food and clothing. 'Twas
wicked for her to say it, surely."

Willie's face grew pale as death, and then flushed crimson to the
temples.

"Don't look so," said Ellen, approaching the bench and putting her little
hand on his hot cheeks. "O, Willie! you are sick and tired," she
continued, soothingly; "will you not lay your head down on my lap, and
tell me all about your troubles?"

Willie's full heart overflowed. Those accents of kindness, so strange to
his ears, what a magic power they had! He leaned his dear bright head on
her soft little palm, and his low voice told in broken accents a tale of
want and suffering. Ellen wept, for her young heart was full of
tenderness and sympathy. The hours sped on, while they thus held
converse, till a hand on the latch aroused them. 'Twas Dilly returned
from her day's work at Mr. Pimble's. Willie sprang up to meet her. "O,
mother!" said he, "a sweet angel has come since you left me, this
morning, crying because I was so hungry."

"Alas, my boy!" said the woman, "I fear you must still go hungry, for I
have brought you nothing. Mr. Pimble says my week's work must go for
rent."

Now was Ellen's moment of joy, as she bounded across the broken floor and
lifted the napkin from her basket. "No, no, Willie,--no, no, Aunt Dilly,
you shall not go hungry to bed to-night. Look what mother has sent you!
How thoughtless of me not to have remembered my basket before, when
Willie has been suffering