Elsie didn't know what to say. Neither did she understand why tears should come to her eyes, except that the little girl was so small, so thin, so clean and sweet, and so very childish in spite of her responsibility. She found some gummed paper, cut a strip, brought the torn edges carefully together and mended the picture as neatly as if she had not been a week ago as helpless an able-bodied girl of her age as there was anywhere to be found. Her sense of satisfaction was certainly commensurate, perhaps extravagant. "There! Miss Stewart will never know," she said. "Do you want another book now?" "Yes, please; but--is it right for Miss Rachel not to know?" Elsie considered. "Perhaps not," she admitted, "but at any rate she won't mind since it looks as well as before." "And I'll be very careful after this," added the child. She selected another volume from the children's shelf, and having had it charged, turned to go. But somehow Elsie was loath to have her. "Why don't you sit down at the table and look at the picture papers?" she suggested. "Oh, I've got to mind the baby," said Mattie--Mattie Howe was the name on her card. "I must be home when he wakes up. Good-by." She started--came back--stood irresolute. "Thank you for mending the book so good--so _goodly_," she said shyly, "and--I'd like to kiss you." With a curious sensation that had no admixture of reluctance, Elsie bent over and received the kiss. "You're prettier than the princess," the little girl declared, and ran away with her book. Elsie Marley hardly knew what would have happened if an elderly lady hadn't come in at that moment and asked for "Cruden's Concordance." She had some difficulty in finding it, but the lady was very pleasant and grateful, and after that there was a constant succession of visitors. Many children came in, all attractive, to Elsie's surprise, though none so appealing as Mattie Howe; and older people in surprising numbers, considering Mr. Middleton's prophecy. But word had somehow gone round that the minister's niece was "tending library," and things being rather dull in the midsummer pause of most of the activities of the place, no doubt more than one came out of curiosity. It was a very friendly curiosity, however, expressed in the pleasantest manner, and Elsie found herself responding to their advances without knowing how. She wondered at herself. The girl did not realize that being in the library made a difference. It was her first experience of work, or of doing anything whatever for any one else, so that even the service of getting out books for another established a sort of relationship between them. At the close of the afternoon, though tired, she was strangely happy.