know that you must be dreadfully lonely in the long evenings, but
I'm afraid your mother will not be pleased to think of your having
somebody to stay with you. Wouldn't you rather come to my house and
live there all the time until your mother is better. You know," she
added as a crowning inducement, "Rover is there."

But Morris betrayed no enthusiasm. "I guess," said he, "I ain't lovin'
so awful much mit Rover. He iss too big. I am likin' little dogs mit
brown eyes, what walks by their legs und carries things by their
mouths. Did you ever see dogs like that?"

"In the circus," answered Teacher. "Where did you see them?"

"A boy by our block," answered Morris, "is got one. He is lovin' much
mit that dog und that dog is lovin' much mit him."

"Well, now, perhaps you could teach Rover to walk on his hind legs, and
carry things in his mouth," suggested Teacher; "and as for this new
little Christian friend of yours----"

"I don't know _be_ he a Krisht," Morris admitted with reluctant candor;
"he ain't said nothin' over it to me. On'y a Irisher lady what lives by
our house, she says mine friend is a Irisher."

"Very well, dear; then of course he's a Christian," Miss Bailey assured
him, "and I shan't interfere with you to-morrow--you may stay at home
and play with him. But we can't let it go on, you know. This kind of
thing never would do when your mother comes back from the hospital. She
might not want your friend in the house. Have you thought of that at
all, Morris? You must make your friend understand it."

"I tells him," Morris promised; "I don't know can he understand. He's
pretty little, only that's how I tells him all times."

"Then tell him once again, honey," Miss Bailey advised, "and make him
understand that he must go back to his own people as soon as your
mother is well. Where are his own people? I can't understand how any
one so little could be wandering about with no one to take care of
him."

"Teacher, I'm takin' care of him," Morris pointed out.

All that night and all the succeeding day Miss Bailey's imagination
reverted again and again to the two little ones keeping house in Mrs.
Mowgelewsky's immaculate apartment. Even increasing blindness had not
been allowed to interfere with sweeping and scrubbing and dusting, and
when Teacher thought of that patient matron, as she lay in her hospital
cot trusting so securely to her Christian friend's guardianship of her
son and home, she fretted herself int