luxurious home, feeling more interested and excited than she had felt
for a long time.

Little Hetty Gray, her scare of fright and pain gone for the time like a
bad dream, lay sound asleep upon her humble bed, and Mrs. Kane, trimming
her night-light, paused to listen, with that fascination which many
people feel at the sound, to the hoarse boom of the old church clock
calling the hour of midnight, across the chimneys of the village and
away over the silent solemn woods.

Mrs. Kane felt with a sort of awe that another day had begun, but she
little knew that with it a strange new leaf had been turned in the story
of her little Hetty's life.




CHAPTER III.

ADOPTED.


Mrs. Rushton returned the next day with a basket of ripe peaches and a
large bouquet of lovely flowers such as Hetty had never seen before. The
yellow lilies might stand now in peace among their tall flag leaves
without fearing to have their heads picked off, for Hetty had got
something newer and more delightful to admire than they. Odorous golden
roses and pearl-white gardenias scented and beautified the poor little
room where Hetty lay. Where had they come from, she wondered, and who
was the pretty lady who sat by her side and kept putting nice-smelling