d, "and dress them up
in old things made of bed-ticking. Then they take 'm to the poorhouse,
where nobody but beggars live. They don't have anything to eat but
cabbage and corndodger, and they have to eat that out of tin pans. And
they just have a pile of straw to sleep in."

On their way home she had pointed out to the frightened child a poor
woman who was grubbing in an ash-barrel.

"That's the way people get to look who live in poorhouses," she said.

It was this memory that was troubling the Little Colonel now.

"Oh, Fritz!" she whispered, with the tears running down her cheeks, "I
can't beah to think of my pretty mothah goin' there. That woman's
eyes were all red, an' her hair was jus' awful. She was so bony an'
stahved-lookin'. It would jus' kill poah Papa Jack to lie on straw an'
eat out of a tin pan. I know it would!"

When Mom Beck opened the door, hunting her, the room was so dark that
she would have gone away if the dog had not come running out from under
the piano.

"You heah, too, chile?" she asked, in surprise. "I have to go down now
an' see if I can get Judy to come help to-morrow. Do you think you can
undress yo'self to-night?"

"Of co'se," answered the Little Colonel. Mom Beck was in such a hurry to
be off that she did not notice the tremble in the voice that answered
her.

"Well, the can'le is lit in yo' room. So run along now like a nice
little lady, an' don't bothah yo' mamma. She got her hands full
already."

"All right," answered the child.

A quarter of an hour later she stood in her little white nightgown with
her hand on the door-knob.

She opened the door just a crack and peeped in. Her mother laid her
finger on her lips, and beckoned silently. In another instant Lloyd was
in her lap. She had cried herself quiet in the dark corner under the
piano; but there was something more pathetic in her eyes than tears. It
was the expression of one who understood and sympathized.

"Oh, mothah," she whispered, "we does have such lots of troubles."

"Yes, chickabiddy, but I hope they will soon be over now," was the
answer, as the anxious face tried to smile bravely for the child's sake,
"Papa is sleeping so nicely now he is sure to be better in the morning."

That comforted the Little Colonel some, but for days she was haunted by
the fear of the poorhouse.

Every time her mother paid out any money she looked anxiously to see how
much was still left. She wandered about the place, touching t