uch lots there, such lovely ones, roses, and
violets, jessamine and lilac, and may--oh, all sorts. I had a garden
of my own, too. Oh, I'd love to take you to granny's, and let you
see it all!"

Charlie was watching her and listening with intense interest.
"How sorry you must be to leave it all!" he remarked sympathetically.
"I'd love to lie in a garden with flowers, and the bees humming, and
no noise of rattling carts and milk-cans. Oh, Jessie!" but to his
dismay Jessie buried her face in her hands and burst into tears.

"I can't stay here," she cried, "I can't, I can't! I _must_ go home.
I shall die if I don't go home to granp," and she sobbed and sobbed
until Charlie was quite frightened.

"Jessie, don't--don't--don't cry like that. I'll ask mother to let
you go, if you want to so badly--but I wish you didn't," he sighed,
his own lips quivering. "I wish you would stay here. I want you
_so_ much, I am so lonely and dull, and--and I hoped you were come to
stay."

Jessie's own tears were checked more quickly by the sight of his than
they would have been by any other means. She pulled herself together
as well as she could. "No--o, don't ask mother," she said in a
choked, thick voice, "it is no use, father would make me stay, and it
would only make him angry if we asked him, and I--I want to help you,
too," she added, quite truthfully. "I shan't mind so much by and by,
p'raps. Don't cry, Charlie. Turn round and listen, and I'll tell
you more stories. Then, after breakfast, I'll tidy your room."

The violence of Charlie's sobs had quite frightened away and stopped
hers, and banished for a time her home-sickness. She put all her
thoughts into her coaxing of Charlie, and after a time he raised his
head and turned around and faced her, and while he lay back on his
pillows, very weary after his excitement, Jessie, the more weary of
the two, tried bravely to be cheerful, and to talk brightly, and so
Mrs. Lang found them when, a little later, she brought up Charlie's
breakfast on a tray.

Mrs. Lang even smiled when she saw the two together, evidently on
such good terms, and the happy smile with which Charlie looked up at
her delighted her sad heart. He was the apple of her eye, the great
love of her life, the only thing in the world she cared for, and to
see him happy, to see his dull, cheerless days brightened, gave her
more pleasure than anything. She kissed her boy and looked quite
kindly at Jessie.

"