amuse her by telling her what they read. When the seamstress
comes, she likes to sew in Miss Carol's room, because there she
forgets her own troubles, which, Heaven knows, are sore enough!
And as for me, Donald, I am a better woman every day for Carol's
sake; I have to be her eyes, ears, feet, hands--her strength, her
hope; and she, my own little child, is my example!"

"I was wrong, dear heart," said Mr. Bird more cheerfully; "we
will try not to repine, but to rejoice instead, that we have an
'angel of the house' like Carol."

"And as for her future," Mrs. Bird went on, "I think we need not
be over-anxious. I feel as if she did not belong altogether to
us, and when she has done what God sent her for, He will take her
back to Himself--and it may not be very long!" Here it was poor
Mrs. Bird's turn to break down, and Mr. Bird's turn to comfort
her.


III.
THE BIRD'S NEST.

Carol herself knew nothing of motherly tears and fatherly
anxieties; she lived on peacefully in the room where she was
born.

But you never would have known that room; for Mr. Bird had a
great deal of money, and though he felt sometimes as if he wanted
to throw it all in the ocean, since it could not buy a strong
body for his little girl, yet he was glad to make the place she