ckly as he
could.

Of course, when Aunt Emma caught sight of the loaves, there was a nagging
and a scolding. They were wrong in shape and colour and size, and
everything else. "I should have thought a great girl like you might have
known the kind of loaf we generally have, and not have taken in such
things as those!"

"As you are always complaining of those we do have, I thought you'd like a
change," was the retort that trembled on Bella's lips, but she kept the
words back. "I thought these looked nice," was all she said.

Indeed, they looked so nice and smelt so deliciously, she could have eaten
a large crust of one then and there. She was very hungry, poor child; but
on washing-days the children were not expected to be hungry, and, as a
rule, no meal was got for any one between breakfast and the evening one,
when their father came home. On washing-days nothing could be attended to
but the washing.

Bella heard little Margery crying softly in the garden. The child was
hungry too, she knew. She was but four years old, and she needed
something. Bella's heart ached for her baby sister, the little one who
had been the pet and darling of the household during her mother's
lifetime. As she listened to the plaintive crying, the thought would come
into her mind, "What would her mother feel if she knew that her baby was
hungry, and neglected and unhappy?" and at last she could bear the thought
and the crying no longer. Summoning up all her courage, she went out to
the scullery, where her aunt was bustling about, grumbling to herself all
the time.

"Aunt Emma," she said half-timidly, "may I give Margery something to eat?
She is so hungry. I hear her crying."

Miss Hender did not answer. "Have you seen the poker?" she demanded,
impatiently. "One of those boys has walked off with it, I'll be bound!
and here is my fire going out for the want of a stirring up. How anybody
can be expected to get on where there's a parcel of children----"

"I am sure the boys haven't had it, Aunt Emma," declared Bella patiently.
"I saw it here just now, and they haven't moved from the garden; they've
been reading all the morning."

"Well, I can't waste any more time," cried the angry woman, "I'll take
this," and impetuously catching up the stick that she used for lifting the
clothes out of the copper, she thrust it into the fire.

Bella stood by wondering and embarrassed. The fire burnt up the better
for its stirring, it is tr