tenderest place.

Her father _was_ a drunkard, she knew, but to be taunted with it
before so many was more than she could bear; and with great sobs
heaving from her bosom, and hot tears filling her eyes, she turned and
ran away from the playground.

Her mother was sitting by the window when she reached home, and the
tearful face of the little girl told that something had happened to
disturb her.

"What is the matter, Susie?" she asked, kindly.

"Oh mother," Susie said, with the tears dropping down her cheeks, as
she hid her face in her mother's lap, "Ned Graham said such a cruel
thing about me," and here the sobs choked her voice so that she could
hardly speak; "He said that I wasn't anybody, and that father drinks."

"My poor little girl," Mrs. Ellet said, very sadly. There were tears
in her eyes, too.

Such taunts as this were nothing new.

"Oh, mother," Susie said, as she lifted her face, wet with tears, from
her mother's lap, "I can't bear to have them say so, and just as if
_I_ had done something wicked. I wish father wouldn't drink! Do you
suppose he'll ever leave it off?"

"I hope so," Mrs. Ellet answered, as she kissed Susie's face where the
tears clung like drops of dew on a rose. "I pray that he may break off