And they just love her to
pieces. They wear nice clothes and she teaches 'em music and manners and
how to keep house and makes useful wives out of them. Oh, that's the
kind of a Home I'd like to have here! Then Lottie could live there
'stead of being sent to the 'sylum."

"Lottie sent to the asylum? Why, what do you mean, Peace?" cried the
startled invalid, sitting almost upright in her chair.

"Haven't you heard?" It was Peace's turn to look surprised.

"Not a word of that sort."

"Why, you know Lottie is a _norphan_, and when she was a baby somebody
adopted her, but her new mother died last winter, and her new father put
her in the Home 'cause he couldn't take care of her himself. Now he's
been killed on the railroad, and his people don't want to be bothered
with her, so she's to be sent to a Norphan 'Sylum, 'cause the Home takes
only children who have somebody who will look after them a little.
Lottie feels dreadfully bad and has 'most cried her eyes out already. I
couldn't get her even to smile when I was up there this week. She is
going to leave next Wednesday."

For a long moment the lame girl lay in deep thought, still holding
Fern's chubby hand in hers, though she had evidently forgotten all about
the little stranger children in her concern for the friendless orphan,
Lottie. When she spoke, she asked absently, "What was that you were
telling me about the Kentucky lady? Where did you hear about it?"

"That girls' Home in Kentucky? Oh, grandma was reading about it in
Blank's Magazine the other day, and grandpa said that's the way all
children's Homes ought to be carried out. Then the boys and girls would
be happier and grow up into better men and women. That's what I think,
too."

"We take Blank's Magazine," said the lame girl irrelevantly. "Here
comes Aunt Pen. We must tell her about Fern and Rivers, and she will
telephone the ladies that they are safe with us. Poor little waifs! You
are home now--until the dear mother is able to care for you again. Then
we'll see."

That was the beginning of it, but the next time Peace visited the Lilac
Lady, she found a crew of noisy carpenters at work on the stone house,
and in answer to her surprised questions, the invalid said, "This is to
be an Orphan Asylum, dear. We shall not call it by that ugly name, but
that is what it is really to be, and we have already two real orphans,
not counting Fern and Rivers, who may be here for only a few weeks or
months."

"Who