object of compassion. She was thanked by a tender pressure on her
hair, and then saying--

"Now I shall wish Augustus good night; bring Violetta home from her
play in the garden, and let her drink tea, and go to bed."

Ah, Violetta, purchased with a silver groat, what was not your value
in Mackarel Lane? Were you not one of its most considered
inhabitants, scarcely less a child of Aunt Ermine and Aunt Alison
than their Rosebud herself?

Murmur, murmur, rippled the child's happy low-toned monologue
directed to her silent but sufficient playmate, and so far from
disturbing the aunt, that more than one smile played on her lips at
the quaint fancies, and at the well of gladness in the young spirit,
which made day after day of the society of a cripple and an old doll,
one constant song of bliss, one dream of bright imaginings. Surely
it was an equalization of blessings that rendered little lonely Rose,
motherless and well nigh fatherless, poor, with no companion but a
crippled aunt, a bird and a toad, with scarcely a toy, and never a
party of pleasure, one of the most joyous beings under the sun, free
from occasions of childish troubles, without collisions of temper,
with few contradictions, and with lessons rather pleasure than toil.
Perhaps Ermine did not take into account the sunshiny content and
cheerfulness that made herself a delightful companion and playfellow,
able to accept the child as her solace, not her burthen.

Presently Rose looked up, and meeting the bright pleasant eyes,
observed--"Violetta has been very good, and said all her lessons
quite perfect, and she would like to sit up till her Aunt Ailie comes