te that Norma,
who had been too intent in her recital to notice the gradual change in
the other's manner, was startled.

"Don't take on so, Mary," she cried, removing the child's wraps as she
spoke, "I've always warned you she wasn't any deserted child, haven't
I?" but there was a real tenderness in Norma's voice as she reminded the
other of it.

"You'd better get your supper," Mary replied, "it's near time for you to
be going," and she pushed her work aside and held out her arms for the
child, her face softening as it did for nothing else in the world.

Tired, cold, dazed with crying, the drooping little soul crept into
Mary's arms, which closed hungrily and held her close as the sobs began
to come again.

Unlike her usual self, Mary let Norma prepare the supper unaided, while
she sat gazing down on the flushed little face pillowed on her arm, and
drew off the broken shoes, chafing and rubbing the cold, tired feet with
her hand.

She wanted no supper, she declared shortly in response to Norma's call,
but on being pressed, came to the table and drank a little tea
thirstily, and fed the sleepy child from her own plate.

"Now don't take on so, Mary, don't fret about it while I'm gone," Norma
begged as she hurried off to her nightly duties. "I'll miss her just as
much as you, if it does turn out that we have to give her up, and for
the darling's own sake, Mary, we ought to be glad to think she's going
back to her own."

But Mary, laying the sleeping child down in the crib, burst forth as the
door closed, "An' it's Norma Bonkowski can tell me I ought to be glad!
She can tell me that, and then say she'll miss her the same as me! It's
little then she knows about my feelings,--for it'll be to lose the one
bright thing outer my life as has ever come in it. 'Go back to her own!'
Like as not her own's a mother like them fine ones I see on the Avenoos
as leaves their little ones to grow up with hired nurses. 'Give her
up--give--her up--' Norma says so easy like,--when every word chokes
me--" and struggling against her sobs, Mary fell on her knees beside the
crib, burying her face in the covers, "an' I must go on sittin' here day
after day sewin', an' my precious one gone; stitchin' an' stitchin', one
day jus' like another stretchin' on ahead, long as life itself, an' no
little feet a-patterin' up the stairs, an' no little voice a-callin' on
me,--nothin' to live for, nothin' to keep me from thinkin' an' thinkin'
till I'm n