rownies came to dinner she ate her
allowance, and flew away with them, apparently in good spirits. But
Tufty moped for a day or two, and, as long as he lived, showed great
excitement at the sight of a flock of sparrows; and it is my private
opinion that, if a second opportunity had been given him, Kittie Grant's
Tufty would have gone off for good and all with Captain Bobtail's
Brownie."

Susie Elliot walked part of the way home with Florence Austin, and the
two little girls, who were fast becoming intimate friends, talked over
the events of the afternoon.

"How much your auntie knows about animals and birds!" said Florence;
"she seems almost as fond of them as if they were people."

"Yes," Susie answered; "she was always fond of pets, papa says; and,
ever since she has been ill, she has spent a great deal of time watching
them and studying their ways. I think it makes her forget the pain,"

"Is it the pain that keeps her awake at night, Susie? You know she said
this afternoon she was glad to hear the chippy-birds, because then she
knew the long night was over; and she looked so white, and couldn't get
down those three little easy steps to pick up the baby-bird. But she
walks about the garden sometimes with a crutch, doesn't she?"

"Oh, yes! and she's better than when she first came here to live, only
she never can be well, you know. Today is one of her poor days; but she
used to be so ill that she was hardly ever free from pain. You never
would have known it, though, she was always so cheerful and doing
something to give us good times."

"Can't she ever be made well, Susie? There's doctors in town, you know,
who cure _every thing_," said the little girl.

Susie shook her head.

"Papa says she has an incurable disease;" and then seriously--"I think
if Jesus were here he would put his hands on auntie and make her well."

CHAPTER X.

PARSON LORRIMER'S WHITE HORSE.

"And now for the story of the minister's horse," Mollie Elliot said,
when Miss Ruth's company of workers had assembled on the next Wednesday
afternoon. "I suppose he was an awfully good horse, which set an example
to all the other horses in the parish to follow. Say, Auntie, wasn't
he?"

"When my grandmother was a little girl," Ruth Elliot began, "she lived
with her father and mother in a small country town among the New
Hampshire hills: and of all the stories she told in her old age about
the quiet simple life of the people of Hilltown, t