Mary Fuller not only believed that her father would come, but she
felt sure he would be with her that very night. Thus she sat upon
the stairs waiting.

But time wore on, and anxiety made the child restless. She began to
doubt--to wonder how she could have expected her father without one
word or promise to warrant the hope. That which had been faith an
hour before, grew into a sharp anxiety. She folded her arms upon her
knees, and burying her face upon them, began to cry.

At last she arose with her eyes full of tears, and walked sadly into
the attic room where she sat down looking with sorrow on all the
little preparations that she had made. She crept to the window, and
clinging with both hands to the sill, lifted herself up to see, by
the shadows that lay among the chimneys, and the slanting gold of
the sunshine which, thank God, warms the tenement house and the palace
towers alike, how fast the hours wore on.

"Oh, the sun is up yet, and the long chimney's shadow is only half
way to the eves," she exclaimed, hopefully, dropping down from the
window, while a flush, as of joyful tears, stole around her eyes.

"Is there anything else I can do?" and she looked eagerly around the
room.

It had been neatly swept. A fire burned in the little coffee-pot stove
that occupied one corner, and the hum of boiling water stole out from
a tea-kettle that stood upon it.

"Everything nice and warm as toast--won't he like it--clean sheets