eedle as well, and to darn the stockings he had made, and even tried
his hand at the spinning--of which, however, he could not make much for
a long time--he had not left off knitting when we come to begin the
story in the next chapter.

CHAPTER III.

HE IS TURNED INTO SOMETHING HE NEVER WAS BEFORE.

Hitherto I have been mixing up summer and winter and everything all
together, but now I am going to try to keep everything in its own place.

Willie was now nine years old. His mother had been poorly for some
time--confined to her room, as she not unfrequently was in the long cold
winters. It was winter now; and one morning, when all the air was dark
with falling snow, he was standing by the parlour window, looking out
on it, and wondering whether the angels made it up in the sky; for he
thought it might be their sawdust, which, when they had too much, they
shook down to get melted and put out of the way; when Tibby came into
the room very softly, and looking, he thought, very strange.

"Willie, your mamma wants you," she said; and Willie hastened up-stairs
to his mother's room. Dark as was the air outside, he was surprised to
find how dark the room was. And what surprised him more was a curious
noise which he heard the moment he entered it, like the noise of a
hedgehog, or some other little creature of the fields or woods. But he
crept gently up to his mother's bed, saying--

"Are you better this morning, mamma?"

And she answered in a feeble sweet voice--

"Yes, Willie, very much better. And, Willie, God has sent you a little
sister."

"O-o-o-oh!" cried Willie. "A little sister! Did He make her Himself?"

"Yes; He made her Himself; and sent her to you last night."

"How busy He must have been lately!" said Willie. "Where is she? I
_should_ like to see her. Is she my very own sister?"

"Yes, your very own sister, Willie--to love and take care of always."

"Where is she?"

"Go and ask nurse to let you see her."

Then Willie saw that there was a strange woman in the room, with
something lying on her lap. He went up to her, and she folded back the
corner of a blanket, and revealed a face no bigger than that of the big
doll at the clergyman's house, but alive, quite alive--such a pretty
little face! He stood staring at it for a while.

"May I kiss her, nurse?"

"Yes--gently--quite gently."

He kissed her, half afraid, he did not know of what. Her cheek was
softer and smoother than anything he had e