and beautiful. Whether an orphan child only, or
with a father that could thus lightly send her adrift,
I do not know now, nor do I care to ask, but I do
recall distinctly that on a raw bleak day in early
winter she was brought to us, from a wild country settlement, by
a reputed uncle--a gaunt round-
shouldered man, with deep eyes and sallow cheeks
and weedy-looking beard, as we curiously watched
him from the front window stolidly swinging this
little, blue-lipped, red-nosed waif over the muddy
wagon-wheel to father's arms, like so much country
produce. And even as the man resumed his seat
upon the thick board laid across the wagon, and
sat chewing a straw, with spasmodic noddings of
the head, as some brief further conference detained
him, I remember mother quickly lifting my sister
up from where we stood, folding and holding the
little form in unconscious counterpart of father and
the little girl without. And how we gathered round
her when father brought her in, and mother fixed
a cozy chair for her close to the blazing fire, and
untied the little summer hat, with its hectic
trimmings, together with the dismal green veil that had
been bound beneath it round the little tingling ears.
The hollow, pale blue eyes of the child followed
every motion with an alertness that suggested a
somewhat suspicious mind.

"Dave gimme that!" she said, her eyes proudly
following the hat as mother laid it on the pillow of