apes--a delicious basketful
for a feverish invalid. This, Nettie found, took nearly half the money,
and the remainder she gave to the grocer, begging him to get her a
bottle of the best sherry wine, which was quickly done, and added to the
basket.

"Now," she said, turning to her poor companion, who had stood meanwhile,
hardly believing the evidence of her eyes, "take me home with you, and
we will carry these to Minna right away."

"Oh, miss, thou art too heavenly kind! It will save Minna; she need not
die now." And with smiles chasing away the tears, the happy child took
hold of one side of the basket, while Nettie carried the other, and
together they wended their way to a poor tenement-house in a dark narrow
street, and climbed the rickety stairs to a back room on the fourth
floor.

As they pushed open the door, a low moan was heard from within, and a
weak voice asked, "Gretel, is it thou? Hast thou brought the orange?"

Gretel sprang to the bedside, and in an eager voice exclaimed: "Oh,
Minna, yes, yes, I have the oranges, and so much more! See this good
little lady, and what she has brought thee. Look! oranges--grapes--wine!
Oh, Minna, sweetheart, thou wilt soon be well now!"

The pale child, reclining among the pillows, her golden hair brushed
back from a brow on which the blue veins showed painfully distinct,
stretched forth a thin little hand for the grapes, and said to Nettie,
"Oh, I have dreamed of fruit like this; thou art an angel to bring it to
me."

Gently Nettie brushed back the fair hair of the little patient, and
pressed the cool grapes to her parched lips, while Gretel poured some of
the wine into a cracked tumbler, and administered it to the sick girl,
who, being too weak to talk much, soon sank into a quiet, refreshing
slumber, with one of Nettie's hands clasped tightly in both her own; and
as Nettie sat by the humble pallet she felt fully repaid for the loss of
her valentines.

And Minna still slept when the German mother entered, who, after
listening to Gretel's whispered story, exclaimed, as Nettie rose to
depart, and stole softly from the room: "May Gott in Himmel bless thee,
young lady, for what thou hast done this day! It is weeks since my Minna
has slept like that." And throwing her apron over her head, the poor
woman burst into happy tears.

It was with a light heart that Nettie tripped homeward, and she never
even glanced at the great window where the brilliant hearts and Cupids
gl