and happy.




CHAPTER XI.

ALICE.


As spring advanced, Alice began to droop, and Sally's quick eye
detected in her infallible signs of decay. But she would not tell it
to Mary, whose life now seemed a comparatively happy one. Mr. and Mrs.
Parker were kind to her,--the pleasant-looking woman and the girl with
crooked feet were kind to her. Uncle Peter petted her, and even Miss
Grundy had more than once admitted that "she was about as good as
young ones would average." Billy, too, had promised to remain and work
for Mr. Parker during the summer, intending with the money thus earned
to go the next fall and winter to the Academy in Wilbraham. Jenny was
coming back ere long, and Mary's step was light and buoyant as she
tripped singing about the house, unmindful of Miss Grundy's
oft-expressed wish that "she would stop that clack," or of the
anxious, pitying eyes Sal Furbush bent upon her, as day after day the
faithful old creature rocked and tended little Alice.

"No," said she, "I cannot tell her. She'll have tears enough to shed
by and by, but I'll double my diligence, and watch little Willie more
closely." So night after night, when Mary was sleeping the deep sleep
of childhood, Sally would steal noiselessly to her room, and bending
over the little wasting figure at her side, would wipe the cold sweat