Parsons is a young woman who was freezing and starving in a little
room upstairs, too proud to beg and too shy and sick to get much
work. I found her warming her hands one day in Mrs. Kennedy's room,
and hanging over the soup-pot as if she was eating the smell. It
reminded me of the picture in Punch where the two beggar boys look
in at a kitchen, sniffing at the nice dinner cooking there. One
says, 'I don't care for the meat, Bill, but I don't mind if I takes
a smell at the pudd'n' when it's dished.' I proposed a lunch at
once, and we all sat down, and ate soup out of yellow bowls with
pewter spoons with such a relish it was fun to see. I had on my old
rig; so poor Parsons thought I was some dressmaker or work-girl, and
opened her heart to me as she never would have done if I'd gone and
demanded her confidence, and patronized her, as some people do when
they want to help. I promised her some work, and proposed that she
should do it in Mrs. K.'s room, as a favor, mind you, so that the
older girls could go to school and Tot have some one to look after
her. She agreed, and that saved her fire, and made the K.'s all
right. Sarah (that's Miss P.) tried to stiffen up when she learned
where I lived; but she wanted the work, and soon found I didn't put
on airs, but lent her books, and brought her and Tot my bouquets and
favors after a german, and told her pleasant things as she sat
cooking her poor chilblainy feet in the oven, as if she never could
get thawed out.

"This summer the whole batch are to go to Uncle Frank's farm and
pick berries, and get strong. He hires dozens of women and children
during the fruit season, and Mrs. Grover said it was just what they
all needed. So off they go in June, as merry as grigs, and I shall
be able to look after them now and then, as I always go to the farm
in July. That's all,--not a bit interesting, but it came to me, and