But through her brain of weal and woe So many thoughts went to and fro, That vain it were her eyes to close. Most of her thoughts hovered, it must be confessed, about Pippin on his straw mattress in the shed. Why did she think about him so much? Mary asked herself, and found no answer, unless the blood tingling in her cheeks were an answer. Mary's had been a cool, detached, impersonal little life, in the years of her girlhood. Life at the Home, pleasant, regular, unconnected with emotions in any way, had changed the trembling, palpitating child who started at every sudden sound into a calm, self-possessed, rather matter-of-fact young woman. She did not often think of the old days. Why should she? They were gone, and where was the sense in stirring herself all up when it did no good to any one? It stood to reason! But Pippin's story to-night brought the old time back whether she would or no. She lay still, staring out into the starlit night. His story--how strange that he should have had such a childhood! Was that why she seemed to have known him all her life? The old times! Perhaps it was the straw mattress that brought it back so clear. She could smell that musty straw now, so unlike the clean, fresh smell of that nice new one out in the shed. She saw her mother, the little gray shawl drawn tightly over her shoulders, the fair hair strained back from the face with its too early lines of pain and grief; saw her eyes as they followed the poor bed dragged almost from under their feet by the shambling figure. Oh! how she had hated that sodden, stumbling figure! And the child, clinging passionately to those poor skirts--thin, worn to shreds, but always clean; poor mother was always clean!--clinging, crying, shaken with a passion of anger, grief, tenderness, which swept away all power of speech--could that child be herself? Yet he was kind, when he was sober; yes, father was kind--indeed, he had never been hard to her. Often and often he would call her to him, caress her, call her his little gal--while her flesh shrank from him, loathing the smell of liquor--he always smelled of liquor, even when sober--of rank tobacco--pah! Mary supposed she was hard-hearted: how could she love a man like that? She adored her mother; the tears came smarting into her eyes at the thought of her. But for him, mother might be alive to-day; poverty, hunger, hard work, had aged her, killed her, long before her time, poor mother! Look at her there; see her eyes following the mattress. Mary turned in her bed, and a sigh that was almost a sob broke from her. She hated wicked people--yes, she hated them; and weak people, too, people who made others suffer just because they were too feeble to deny themselves the drink that was poison--