with the addition of a shrewd theory of his own, deduced from the
circumstances which had a parallel in actual history, and boldly
stated that the child had probably committed suicide on account of
family troubles. Poor Fanny and Eva both saw that, when night was
falling and Ellen had not been found. Eva rushed out and secured the
paper from the newsboy, and the two sisters gasped over the
startling column together.

"It's a lie! oh, Fanny, it's a lie!" cried Eva. "She never would;
oh, she never would! That little thing, just because she heard you
and me scoldin', and you said that to her, that if it wasn't for her
you'd go away. She never would."

"Go away?" sobbed Fanny--"go away? I wouldn't go away from hell if
she was there. I would burn; I would hear the clankin' of chains,
and groans, and screeches, and devils whisperin' in my ears what I
had done wrong, for all eternity, before I'd go where they were
playin' harps in heaven, if she was there. I'd like it better, I
would. And I'd stay here if I had twenty sisters I didn't get along
with, and be happier than I would be anywhere else on earth, if she
was here. But she couldn't have done it. She didn't know how. It's
awful to put such things into papers."

Eva jumped up with a fierce gesture, ran to the stove, and crammed
the paper in. "There!" said she; "I wish I could serve all the
papers in the country the same way. I do, and I'd like to put all
the editors in after 'em. I'd like to put 'em in the stove with
their own papers for kindlin's." Suddenly Eva turned with a swish
of skirts, and was out of the room and pounding up-stairs, shaking
the little house with every step. When she returned she bore over