ng log, she tried to warm her fingers and toes.
More wind down the chimney made more smoke, and sent the child coughing
back from the fireplace. She was wide awake now, and stood listening.
Sounds there were, indeed, but not one that could be associated with any
living thing in the house. She felt her way around the walls to where
the candle used to be, but it was gone. There was no furniture to
stumble over, and when she came to the side of the wall in the inner
room from which the stairway crept up, she mounted it on her hands and
knees, trembling, partly with cold, partly with fear at the noise made
by the flapping of the sole of one of her old shoes. There was a step
missing at the turn of the stairs, but the child knew where the vacancy
was, and pulling herself over it, she reached the landing, felt all
around the walls there, and made the circuit of the three small rooms
in the same fashion. They were entirely empty.

Cautiously the girl stole down the broken stairs and back to her former
place by the smoking slab, where she curled herself up into the old
quilt again, as into a mother's arms, and spoke aloud, though there was
none to listen but the obstreperous wind:

"Anyhow she won't be here to lick me no more!" That thought seemed to
compensate for darkness and loneliness. The voices of wind and rain were
apparently more kindly than the human tones to which she had been
accustomed, and soothed by their stormy lullaby, the little maid fell
asleep.

The sunshine poured freely into the forsaken house next morning, drying
up the damp floors, and turning to gold the scrap of yellow hair that
showed through a hole in the old quilt. Presently the small girl shook
the covering away from her and stood up, to yawn and stretch herself
out of the stiffness from a night spent on the hard floor. She was not a
pretty child, unless naturally curling fair hair, that would be fairer
when it was washed, could make her so. The long, thin legs that came
below her torn dress made her too tall for her age, and what might have
been a passable mouth was spoiled by the departure of two of the front
"baby" teeth and the tardy arrival of the later contingent.

Part of the day the child seemed satisfied with her new-found liberty.
Having discovered a stale crust or two in a cupboard, she wanted no
more, for her diet had never been luxurious. Into every corner of the
house she intruded her small freckled nose, pulling down from shelves