"Stop crying; I never could endure crying children," she said. "See how you have crushed the pretty Leghorn, you ungrateful thing! Better be thanking heaven that I took you from that miserable poor-house, than fly in the face of Providence in this manner, crushing Leghorn flats and marabout feathers that cost me mints of money, as if they were city property." "She did not mean to spoil the feathers, ma'am, it was all my fault," said Mary Fuller; "Isabel loved her poor mother so much." "And am not I her mother? Can't you children let the poor woman rest in her pine coffin at Potter's Field, without tormenting me with all this sobbing and crying? Remember my little lady, it is not too late yet; a few more scenes like this and it will be an easy matter to send you back where I took you from. Then, perhaps, you will find it worth while to cry after your new mother a little." The two little girls looked at each other through their tears. Perhaps at the moment they thought of the Infants' Hospital, where Mrs. Farnham had found them, with something of regret. The contrast of a carriage cushioned with velvet and four superb horses, had not impressed them as it might have done older persons. Shut up with strangers, while their hearts were full of regret, they had not found the change for which they were expected to be grateful, quite so happy as she fancied. Up to the hour we mention they had kept their places demurely, and in silence, drawing their little feet up close to the seats, fearful of being found in the way, and stealing their hands together now and then with a silent clasp, which spoke a world of feeling to the noble man who sat regarding them over his book. He had watched the scene we have described in silence, and with a sort of philosophical thoughtfulness, using it as a means of studying the souls of those two little girls. When Mrs. Farnham ceased speaking and turned to him for concurrence in her mode of drawing out the affections and settling the preliminaries of a life-time for that little soul, he only answered by leaning from the window and calling out. "Ralph, draw up and let the horses have a rest under the shadow of this high rock. Come, children, get out, and let's take a look around us; your little limbs will be all the better for a good run among the underbrush." Suiting the action to his words, Judge Sharp sprang from the carriage, took Isabel in his arms, set her carefully down, then more gently, and with a touch of tenderness, drew Mary Fuller forward, and folded her little form to his bosom.