_Hope on_."]

It was Dorothy Cummins singing! "Hope on!" The woman began to sing too.
"The sunlit hours are near!" The washer went faster. The woman's face
caught a gleam from the coming sunlight. "Hope on! Hope on!" It would
yet be possible to get all the clothes out before noon.

If she had looked into her neighbor's back garden just then she would
have seen what the singer did. A little brown bird was vainly pecking
away at a crust lying under a tree. Then the singer came, with soft,
quick steps, and broke the crust into crumbs. The sunlit hour had come
for the bird.

[Illustration: "_Broke the crust_."]

And it even came for Brother George at dinner time. Joy bells did not
always ring when he and Dorothy were in close quarters. To-day his
sister remarked, as she looked over his shoulder at some exercise papers
in his hands: "What a nice writer you are, George. Father couldn't
write a bit better than that, I'm sure."

"Don't you make fun of a fellow."

"I'm not. I mean it."

[Illustration: "_I mean it._"]

It is strange, but true, words of praise do not often come in our way.
The sunlight dazzled George just at first, but when he had grown
familiar with it, he called out just before going off to school again:
"I say, Dorothy, don't you go chopping that wood. I'll do it when I come
back again. Wood chopping isn't in a girl's line." He even shut the door
so quietly that the mother at work at her machine did not know that he
had gone--the mother who had to work so many hours in order to make ends
meet during the husband's long illness. Her face looked very sad as she
bent over her work, but such a change came over it as the door opened
and the little housekeeper came in, bearing a cup of tea and a thin
slice of bread and butter, laid daintily on a little tray.

[Illustration: "_I'm not tired now._"]

"Why, Dorothy, what have you got there?"

"A cup of tea for you, mother, and you are to drink it, and to be sure
to eat the bread and butter. I saw how little dinner you ate. I was
watching you, and you did look so very tired and worn." "But I'm not
tired now," said the mother, "not a bit of it. Why," lifting up her face
from the teacup, "your loving care has strengthened me already."

"I shall be able to help you a lot after tea," said Dorothy, before
returning to her kitchen duties.

As soon as they were over, and she had changed her dress, she peeped
into her father's room to see if he was sleeping.

"D