She was the wife of a hard-working, painstaking printer,—a man who never missed a day's work from idleness or a spree, but who yet had hard work enough to maintain his family at home, help support his old mother, keep his house and life insured, and make both ends of the year meet. Mrs. Ward had never kept a girl till quite lately. She had always been able to do all her own work, with the help of her daughter, who had been trained to usefulness from the time she could run alone. But Comfort Ward, though a strong and healthy girl up to the age of fourteen, had then begun to pine away and fade like a plant. The spring after her fifteenth birthday, she was laid to rest under the trees of Mount Faith Cemetery, in the sure and certain hope of a glorious immortality. Her illness was long and trying, and Mrs. Ward found herself so worn out after it was over, that her husband insisted on her having some one to help her in her household work. So she hired Abbey Jenkins, a stout girl of fourteen, who had already lived in two or three different places, but for some reason (which no one seemed exactly to understand) had never stayed long in any one of them. Every one told Mrs. Jenkins that her Abbey could not possibly have a better place: Mrs. Ward was an excellent Christian woman, a capital housekeeper, understanding all sorts of work, and one who would do her duty by any girl who lived with her. Old Aunt Phœbe Ray added to her congratulations the remark that Mrs. Ward had a heap of patience, and could get on with Abbey if any one could; from which we may gather that Abbey was no particular favourite with the old lady. Mrs. Ward was tired, and the shaded back steps made a very pleasant resting-place. She looked through the paper, and then sat for a few moments surveying her little garden-ground and considering how she could put in a row of Martinias and some new annual flower-seeds where every inch of room seemed already occupied,— when she perceived a smell as of burning paint. "Somebody has got a hot fire," was her first thought. "It comes from the kitchen!" was her second. She jumped up hastily and opened the door. There on the stove was her new, neatly-painted green water-pail, all blackened and blistered with the heat, the paint upon the bottom burned off, and filling the whole house with a most unsavory odour! She hastened to snatch it off, but the mischief was done. The pail was utterly spoiled. Mrs. Ward was a woman who understood pretty well how to rule her own spirit. She did not utter a single hasty exclamation, but there was some sharpness in the tone with which she called "Abbey!" at the foot of the back stairs. Abbey did not answer. And Mrs. Ward, listening, heard a sort of rubbing and scrubbing sound, as of some one violently rubbing a carpet. "What has she been about?" thought Mrs. Ward.