who was
willing to receive them and give them a home, such as it was, among his
own brood of black-eyed little ones. Anne decidedly refused. Dr. Gaston
then asked her to come to him, and be his dear daughter as long as he
lived.

"I must not come with them, and I can not come without them," was Anne's
reply.

There remained Miss Lois. But she seemed entirely unconscious of any
pressing necessity for haste in regard to the affairs of the little
household, coming and going as usual, but without words; while people
round her, with that virtuous readiness as to the duties of their
neighbors which is so helpful in a wicked world, said loudly and
frequently that she was the nearest friend, and ought to do--Here
followed a variety of suggestions, which amounted in the aggregate to
everything. At last, as often happens, it was an outside voice that
brought the truth before her.

"And what are you thinking of doing, dear Miss Lois, for the five poor
orphans?" asked the second Miss Macdougall while paying a visit of
general condolence at the church-house.

"Why, what should I do?" said Miss Lois, with a faint remembrance of her
old vigilant pride. "They want nothing."

"They want nothing! And not one hundred dollars apiece for them in the
wide world!" exclaimed Miss Jean.

"Surely you're joking, my dear. Here's Dr. Gaston wishing to take Anne,
as is most kind and natural; but she will not leave those children.
Although why they should not go back to the stratum from which they came
is a mystery to me. She can never make anything of them: mark my words."

Miss Jean paused; but whether Miss Lois marked her words or not, she
made no response, but sat gazing straight at the wall. Miss Jean,
however, knew her duty, and did it like a heroine of old. "We thought,
perhaps, dear Miss Lois, that _you_ would like to take them for a time,"
she said, "seeing that Anne has proved herself so obstinate as to the
other arrangements proposed. The village has thought so generally, and
I am not the one to hide it from you, having been taught by my lamented
parent to honor and abide by veracity the most precise. We could all
help you a little in clothing them for the present, and we will
contribute to their support a fish now and then, a bag of meal, a barrel
of potatoes, which we would do gladly--right gladly, I do assure you.
For no one likes to think of Dr. Douglas's children being on the town."

The homely phrase roused Miss Lois at las