, she would find out in some other way. She talked to
her small companions and hung about the elder girls and listened when
they were gossiping; and acting upon certain information they had
unconsciously let drop, she started late one afternoon on a voyage of
discovery, climbing stairs she had never known the existence of, until
she reached the attic floor. There she found two doors near each other,
and opening one, she saw her beloved Sara standing upon an old table
and looking out of a window.

"Sara!" she cried, aghast. "Mamma Sara!" She was aghast because the
attic was so bare and ugly and seemed so far away from all the world.
Her short legs had seemed to have been mounting hundreds of stairs.

Sara turned round at the sound of her voice. It was her turn to be
aghast. What would happen now? If Lottie began to cry and any one
chanced to hear, they were both lost. She jumped down from her table
and ran to the child.

"Don't cry and make a noise," she implored. "I shall be scolded if you
do, and I have been scolded all day. It's--it's not such a bad room,
Lottie."

"Isn't it?" gasped Lottie, and as she looked round it she bit her lip.
She was a spoiled child yet, but she was fond enough of her adopted
parent to make an effort to control herself for her sake. Then,
somehow, it was quite possible that any place in which Sara lived might
turn out to be nice. "Why isn't it, Sara?" she almost whispered.

Sara hugged her close and tried to laugh. There was a sort of comfort
in the warmth of the plump, childish body. She had had a hard day and
had been staring out of the windows with hot eyes.

"You can see all sorts of things you can't see downstairs," she said.

"What sort of things?" demanded Lottie, with that curiosity Sara could
always awaken even in bigger girls.

"Chimneys--quite close to us--with smoke curling up in wreaths and
clouds and going up into the sky--and sparrows hopping about and
talking to each other just as if they were people--and other attic
windows where heads may pop out any minute and you can wonder who they
belong to. And it all feels as high up--as if it was another world."

"Oh, let me see it!" cried Lottie. "Lift me up!"

Sara lifted her up, and they stood on the old table together and leaned
on the edge of the flat window in the roof, and looked out.

Anyone who has not done this does not know what a different world they
saw. The slates spread out on either side of t