But her heart was warm with the thought of the dear mother she was going to rejoin. What a glad reunion it would be for both in spite of her bitter troubles, when, clasped in that dear mother's arms, she should lay her weary head on that dear breast, and sob out all her grief to sympathizing ears. She had a little money in a small purse that Franklin had forced her to take as a loan, and she hired a cab to take her to her old home, where she had not a doubt of still finding her mother. Alas! what was her horror to find the small house burned to the ground! Dismissing the cab, she started on a round of the neighborhood, seeking news of the dear one. But there were new neighbors in the sparsely settled place, and no one knew anything about the little lady who had kept boarders at the house on the corner. Half frozen with the bitter cold, she dragged herself to the corner grocery, thinking that Mr. Sparks could surely give her some information. His stolid, well-fed face was the first familiar one she had met, and she wondered why he wore that broad band of crape about his coat-sleeve. "Is it really you, Miss Chase? Well, well! you're quite a stranger! Been ill? You don't look as blooming as when you went away in the summer. Well, it was hard on you losing your little mother in that cruel fashion! But death is no respecter of persons. He robbed me of my ailing wife about the same time your mother was called. What! you don't understand? Bless me! the girl's dropped like I'd shot her! Ailsa! Ailsa!" he called in alarm, as he picked up the unconscious girl, and hurried with her to the back of the store, which was also his dwelling. Then a pretty, brown-eyed girl, sitting with several noisy children, sprang up, and cried in wonder: "What is the matter?" "Here's your old neighbor and school-mate, Ailsa, little Dainty Chase. She came into the store, and I was talking to her about the death of my wife and her mother, when she dropped in a sort of fit. See to her, will you, while I run back to my customers?" Pretty Ailsa Scott hastened to resuscitate her old school-mate, and when she revived, was startled to hear her sob, hysterically: "I came to find my mother, Ailsa. I have been lost from her for wretched months; but your step-father told me she was dead! Oh, it can not be true! God would not be so cruel!" Ailsa Scott had passed through the recent loss of her own mother, and she knew what a blow it would be to Dainty when she heard the cruel truth; but there was no escaping it, so she clasped her gentle arms about the stricken girl, saying sadly: