er rolls were, and knew that the child must be famished; and
sure enough, after a little nap, Marie was ready to wake and sit up at
the little round table, and be fed like a baby with everything good
that Abby could think of. The fare had not been dainty in the
travelling troupe of Le Boss. The fine white bread, the golden butter,
the bit of broiled fish, smoking hot, seemed viands of paradise to the
hungry girl. She laughed for pleasure, and her eyes shone like stars.
It was like the chateau, she said, where everything was gold and
silver,--the chateau where Madame la Comtesse lived. As for Abby
herself, Marie gravely informed her that she was an angel. Abby
laughed, not ill pleased. "I don't look special like angels," she
said; "that is, if the pictures I've seen are correct. Not much wings
and curls and white robes about me, Maree. And who ever heard of an
angel in a check apurn, I want to know?"

But Marie was not to be turned aside. It was well known, she said,
that angels could not come to earth undisguised in these days. It had
something to do with the Jews, she did not know exactly what. Mere
Jeanne had told her, but she forgot just how it was. But as to their
not coming at all, that would be out of the question, for how would the
good God know what was going on down here, or know who was behaving
well and meriting a crown of glory, and who should go down into the
pit? Did not Abby see that?

Abby privately thought that here was strange heathen talk to be going
on in her kitchen; but she said nothing, only gave her guest more jam,
and said she was eating nothing,--the proper formula for a good
hostess, no matter how much the guest may have devoured.

It was true, as has been said before, that Abby Rock was not fair to
outward view. Nature had been in a crabbed mood when she fashioned
this gaunt, angular form, these gnarled, unlovely features. An
uncharitable neighbour, in describing Abby, once said that she looked
as if she had swallowed an old cedar fence-rail and shrunk to it; and
the description was apt enough so far as the body went. Her skin,
eyes, and hair were of different shades (yet not so very different) of
greyish brown; her nose was long and knotty, her mouth and chin
apparently taken at random from a box of misfits. Yes, the cedar
fence-rail came as near to it as anything could. Yet somehow, no one
who had seen the light of kindness in those faded eyes, and heard the
sweet, cord