"Sulky little monkey!" he indignantly exclaimed, "why don't you speak? Say," after a pause, while he regarded her with surprise, "why don't you want to play?" She looked at him in pathetic silence, then her eyes glanced at her crutches. As he followed her glance, surprise, sorrow, and pity transformed his face. After a time he said in a subdued voice:-- "I am sorry I was so rude. I did not know. May I come over there?" Hope saw how sincere he was, and in her quaint way welcomed him. He soon cleared the barrier, and seated on the stump of a tree they were very soon acquainted. Every day after that they met, and soon became fast friends, exchanging childish confidences and mutually petting Joanna, for Jack was loyal to all of Hope's belongings. (Now I must draw a breath, and put in my cat's oar. I have made you acquainted with Jett's two stanch friends, and you will better understand the story. I do pity Hope, for my shoulder troubles me very much, and I have to wait before I jump as I used to, and I know that she suffered, and I am very glad she had a cat to comfort her. I think sometimes if I could see these beautiful places and run around among the flowers, how happy I should be; but that is one of my air castles. But in the hereafter I know it will all be mine, and the gardens and fields of Paradise compensate for those we have not here. Now I will return to my story.) One day, after Jack had been a long time silent, he suddenly said, "Have you got a step-mother?" "A step-mother? What is that? My mother is an angel. She died when I was two years old." "Well," he said, "you will have one, never fear; your father will get one. My mother died when I was five years old, and now--a year ago--my father went and got one. So will yours." "You bad boy! He won't. My Aunt Martha won't let him. You are a dreadful boy to talk so!" "Don't be down on a fellow so. Much you know about men. Your father's no better than mine. He'll get a wife yet, see if he don't; and you will hate her just as I do my step-mother. "My father loved me till this woman came. He used to take me everywhere with him, and he cried when I begged for my mother after she died; he hugged me and called me his poor little chap. And _now_ it is all over. I have never called her mother, and I never will. She killed Pipkin, my mother's cat, just as soon as she came. She made the servant drown her, because she was treacherous and broke a saucer, and she was afraid of her. "She is a beast. Dear old Pipkin is better off away from her; but I do miss her and will never forgive that woman. My mother would kiss me, and then Pipkin and the kitty would lie beside me for company; and after my mother died that cat was all the comfort I had. The servants loved her. Not one of them would have killed her, but this woman has servants who will do her dirty work.