I never have understood how Miss Katherine could have come to an Orphan
Asylum to live and to eat Orphan Asylum meals when she could have eaten
the best in Yorkburg. And Yorkburg's best is the best on earth.
Everybody says that who's tried other places, even Miss Webb, who gets
right impatient with Yorkburg's slowness and enjoyment of itself.

And Miss Katherine is living here from pure choice. That's what she is
doing, and she's made living creatures of us, just like God did when He
breathed on Adam and woke him up.

At the hospital she used to ask me all about the Asylum, and, never
guessing why, I told her all I knew, except about Miss Bray. Miss
Katherine had known the Asylum all her life, but had only been in it
twice--just passing it by, not thinking. When I got better and could
talk as much as I pleased, she wanted to know how many of us there were,
what we did, and how we did it: what we ate, and what kind of
underclothes we wore in winter, and how many times a week we bathed all
over; when we got up, and what we studied, and how long we sewed each
day, and how long we played, and when we went to bed--and all sorts of
other things. I wondered why she wanted to know, and when I found out I
could have laid right down and died from pure gladness. I didn't,
though.

Once I asked her what made her do it, and she laughed and said because
she wanted to, and that she was much obliged to me for having found her
work for her. But I believe there's some other reason she won't tell.

And why I believe so is that sometimes, when she thinks I am asleep, I
see her looking in the fire, and there's something in her face that's
never there at any other time. It's a remembrance. I guess most hearts