needn't be _very_ full, you know. Effie doesn't walk much, because of
only having one leg. She will be _so_ pleased, for she hasn't had a new
dress I don't know when."

Consoled by the prospect of Effie's satisfaction, Amy departed quite
cheerfully, and Mrs. Ashe was spared the pain of seeing her only child
in tears on the first evening of their reunion. But Amy talked so
constantly of Katy, and seemed to love her so much, that it put a plan
into her mother's head which led to important results, as the next
chapter will show.




CHAPTER II.

AN INVITATION.


It is a curious fact, and makes life very interesting, that, generally
speaking, none of us have any expectation that things are going to
happen till the very moment when they do happen. We wake up some morning
with no idea that a great happiness is at hand, and before night it has
come, and all the world is changed for us; or we wake bright and
cheerful, with never a guess that clouds of sorrow are lowering in our
sky, to put all the sunshine out for a while, and before noon all is
dark. Nothing whispers of either the joy or the grief. No instinct bids
us to delay or to hasten the opening of the letter or telegram, or the
lifting of the latch of the door at which stands the messenger of good
or ill. And because it may be, and often is, happy tidings that come,