eared and whom I have been seeking
for years; I wanted to examine it--but I seem to have frightened her;
will you, if you know her, ask her to let me look at it? If it is the
one I seek, it should open by a secret spring, and have a boy's face
inside. If it should help me to find my long-lost sister!" He paused,
much moved.

Mr. Wild, the hotel-keeper, calmed Maggie, and asked her to let the
gentleman examine it.

As he took it in his hand, he murmured, "The very same! here is a mark
I well remember. Now if I can open it!" He held it a moment when
suddenly it sprang open, to Maggie's amazement, and there--sure
enough--was a faded, old-fashioned daguerreotype of a boy's face.

"It is the very one!" he exclaimed in excitement. "Now where is this
Miss--What did you say her name was? Where could she have got it?"

"She told me," said Maggie, trembling, "that her brother gave it to
her."

"So I did," said the man eagerly; "but the name! can she have changed
her name?"

"It is Miss Hester Bartlett," said one of the bystanders, "and she
is--a little--deformed, and lives alone in the edge of the village."

The man turned so white he seemed about to faint as he said: "It is
she! Friends"--turning to the much interested crowd, "I have sought
her for years. I was in the army and reported killed in battle, and
when I went home to take care of my unfortunate sister, she had
disappeared, and I have never till now found a clue to her. Take me
to her instantly!" turning to Maggie, who was now really crying for
joy to think of Miss Hester's happiness.

But the people urged that such a shock, when she supposed him dead,
might be very dangerous, and at last he was persuaded to let some one
who knew her break the joyful news to her.

Maggie went back to the cottage the happiest girl in the village, and
the next morning the news was safely broken to Miss Hester, who in a
short half hour found herself crying on her brother's shoulder--the
richest and the happiest woman in all the world, as she said through
her tears.

From that day a new life began for Maggie, for neither brother nor
sister would hear of parting from her, who had been the means of their
finding each other. A larger house was built, and Miss Hester
persuaded to mingle a little with her neighbors, while Maggie took her
place among the young people on equal terms with all.

"That was splendid!" said Kristy, with shining eyes, as Mrs. Wilson
ended her story. "Is i