"We used to live on a farm on the mountains--father and mother and I. There were a great many cattle, and so much ground it tired me to walk across it. I always went to school, and father read to us in the evenings. I suppose that's the way I've learned to love to read, and I've been so glad since. I was pretty small when they died,--first father, then mother. I remember it a little; at least I remember about mother,--she kissed me so, and cried. Then Aunt Jane came for me, and brought me here. We lived in a pleasant house up the street, at first. I used to work in the mill, and earned enough to pay aunt what I cost her. Then one day, when I was thirteen years old, we were coming out at noon, all of us girls, in a great hurry and frolic, and I felt sick and dizzy watching the wheels go round, and,--well, they didn't mean to,--but they pushed me, and I fell." "Down stairs?" "All the way,--it was a long, crooked flight. I struck my spine on every step." "Oh, Peace!" said Gypsy, half under her breath. "I was sick for a little while; then I got better. I thought it was all over. Then one day I found a little curve between my shoulders, and so,--well, it came so slowly I hardly knew it, till at last I was in bed with the pain. We had come here because it was hard times, and aunt had to support me,--and then there were the doctor's bills." "Doesn't he say you can _ever_ get well? never sit up a little while?" "Oh, no." Gypsy gasped a little, as if she were suffocating. "And your aunt,--is she kind to you?" "Oh, yes." A certain flitting expression, that the face of Peace caught with the words, Gypsy could not help seeing. "But I mean, real kind. Does she love you?" The girl's cheek flushed to a pale, quick crimson, then faded slowly. "She is very good to me. I am a great trouble. You know I am not her own. It is very hard for her that I can't support myself." Gypsy said something just then, in her innermost thought of thoughts, about Aunt Jane, that Aunt Jane would not have cared to hear. "If I could only earn something!" said Peace, with a quick breath, that sounded like a sigh. "That is hardest of all. But it's all right somehow." "Peace Maythorne!" said Gypsy, in a little flash, "I don't see! never to go out in the wind and jump on the hay, and climb the mountains, and run and row and snowball,--why, it would _kill_ me! And you lie here so sweet and patient, and you haven't said a cross word all the while you've been telling me about it. I don't understand! How can you, _can_ you bear it?" "I couldn't, if I didn't tell Him," said Peace, softly. "Whom?" "God." There was a long silence. Gypsy looked out of the window, winking very hard, and Peace lay quite still upon the bed. "There!" said Gypsy, at last, with a jump. "I shall be late to school." "Oh," said Peace, "you haven't told me anything about yourself; you said you would."