At last it dawned upon them that, for mere form’s sake, they should ask an answer from me, and it came in a swift and emphatic “NO!” They were surprised and angry, but to all their half-sneering questions--as to why and wherefore--wide-eyed and amazed, I had but one word for answer: “Mother!” The Rev. Hyler answered: “My wife will be your mother!”--and I almost laughed; then with large conclusiveness I replied: “But my mother loves me, sir!” Miss Linda caught my hand and said: “Think, Carrie--a home--brothers--father and mother to love you.” I looked at him a walking bitterness, I looked at her a withering disappointment and said: “No! no, dear Miss Linda, they love you, but they would not love me--and” I triumphantly added, “they will not tell you so!” She turned questioningly to them, but the challenge was not accepted. Angrily her father bade me go, saying, “I might know what hunger was some day.” But I answered cheerfully: “Oh, I have been hungry sometimes, and so has mother, but we were together, so it was all right. You know when you’re orphans and widows, you always come all right”--a speech that was as perfect in faith as it was imperfect in grammar. The Rev. Hyler, with a vindictive gleam in his eye, “hoped I might be hungry again, that I might appreciate what I was rejecting”--and Miss Linda kissed me with a disappointed face, and whispered for me to go, now. After that life became intolerable there, and soon there came a morning when, ready for an early start, I crept into Miss Linda’s room and knelt down by her bed, and with hands tight-clasped we looked--and looked--and looked, and spoke not one word between us. Then there came a call for me, and I rose to go. As I bent over to kiss her, she lifted a thin, little, warning hand and tried to turn my face away, but with a smothered cry of indignation, I caught her hand and held it while I slipped my other arm beneath her incredibly frail shoulders, and lifting her, I kissed her shadowy hair, her brow, her cheeks and her pale, dry lips. Then with a long, long look into her dark, sapphire-blue eyes, I laid her down and went out, and saw her no more forever. As I closed the door gently behind me, I heard, for the last time, the husky whisper that had grown so dear to me, and all it said was, “Little sister!” I stumbled down the stairs, and slipping my hand into my mother’s, we faced the world once more, I having faith to believe that somewhere in its mighty length and breadth there was a home for us, and that together we should somehow find it.