"Hanged if I ever buy another! See here, you make me enough for a year, and we'll have a fair bargain between us. That is, if you can't do better and don't mind," he added, suddenly abating his warmth and looking almost bashful over the well-meant proposal. "I'd love to do it. Only you mustn't pay too much," said Letty, glad of any thing to keep her hands and thoughts busy, for life was very bare and cold just then. "All right. I'll see to it directly, and nobody be the wiser," returned her new employer, privately resolving to order a bale of red flannel on the morrow, and pay fabulous prices for the work of the little friend who had once kept him from worse than starvation. It was not much to offer, and red flannel was not a romantic subject of conversation; but something in the prompt relief and the hearty good-will of the man went to Letty's heart, already full to overflowing with many cares and troubles. She tried to thank him, but could only cover up her face and sob. It was so sweet and comfortable to find any one who cared enough for her to lift her out of the slough of despond, which was to her as dangerous a mood as the desperate one he had known. There were hands enough to beckon the winsome creature to the wrong side of the quagmire, where so many miss the stepping-stones; but she felt that this was the right side, and the hand an honest one, though rough and grimy with hard work. So the tears were glad and grateful tears, and she let them flow, melting the fatal frost that had chilled her hope and faith in God and man. But the causer of them could not bear the sight, for the contrast between this forlorn girl and the blithe, blooming Letty of that memorable day was piteous. Manlike, he tried to express his sympathy in deeds as well as words, and, hastily filling a tin cup from the coffee-can, pressed it upon her with a fatherly stroke of the bent head and a soothing,-- "Now, my dear, just take a sip of this, and don't cry any more. We'll straighten things out. So cheer up, and let me lend a hand anywhere, anyhow." But hunger and fear, weariness and cold, had been too much for poor Letty; and, in the act of lifting up her wet face to thank him, the light left her eyes, and she would have slipped to the ground, if he had not caught her. In a minute she was herself again, lying on the old rug, with snow upon her forehead and some one fanning her with a newspaper. "I thought I was going to die," she whispered, looking about her in a dazed sort of way. "Not a bit of it! You're going to sleep. That's what you want, and old Sally's going to sit by while you do it. It's a hardish pillow; but I've put my handkerchief over it, and, being Monday, its spick-and-span clean."