Belle kept her word, even when she was in a happy home of her own; for out of the dead roses bloomed a friendship that brightened Lizzie's life; and long after the blue garland was faded Belle remembered the helpful little lesson that taught her to read the faces poverty touches with a pathetic eloquence, which says to those who look, "Forget-me-not." V. OLD MAJOR. "O, mamma, don't let them kill him! He isn't doing any harm, and he's old and weak, and hasn't any one to be good to him but Posy and me!" cried little Ned, bursting into his mother's room, red and breathless with anxiety and haste. "Kill whom, dear? Sit down and tell me all about it." "I _can't_ sit down, and I _must_ be quick, for they may do it while I'm gone. I left Posy to watch him, and she is going to scream with all her might the minute she sees them coming back!" cried Ned, hovering restlessly about the doorway, as if expecting the call that was to summon him to the rescue. "Mercy on us! what is it, child?" "A dear old horse, mamma, who has been hobbling round the road for a week. I've seen him driven away from all the neighbors, so Posy and I give him clover and pat him; and to-day we found him at our bars, looking over at us playing in the field. I wanted him to come in, but Mr. White came along and drove him off, and said he was to be killed because he had no master, and was a nuisance. Don't let him do it!" "But, Neddy, I cannot take him in, as I did the lame chicken, and the cat without a tail. He is too big, and eats too much, and we have no barn. Mr. White can find his master, perhaps, or use him for light work." Mamma got no further, for Ned said again,-- "No, he can't. He says the poor old thing is of no use but to boil up. And his master won't be found, because he has gone away, and left Major to take care of himself. Mr. White knew the man, and says he had Major more than eighteen years, and he was a good horse, and now he's left to die all alone. Wouldn't I like to pound that man?" "It _was_ cruel, Neddy, and we must see what we can do." So mamma put down her work and followed her boy, who raced before her to tell Posy it would be "all right" now. Mrs. West found her small daughter perched on a stone wall, patting the head of an old white horse, who looked more like a skeleton than a living animal. Ned gave a whoop as he came, and the poor beast hastily hobbled across the road, pressing himself into a nook full of blackberry vines and thorny barberry bushes, as if trying to get out of sight and escape tormentors. "That's the way he does when any one comes, because the boys plague him, and people drive him about till he doesn't know what to do. Isn't it a pity to see him so, mamma?" said tender-hearted Ned, as he pulled a big handful of clover from his father's field close by.