"I 'm ruther late gittin' here," said the new-comer, "but I 've been a-neglectin' my work so in the last couple o' days that I 've had a power of it to do to-day to ketch up." "Oh, we 're so glad you 've come!" said one of the women. "Mebbe you kin help us out of our fix. We 're in sich a fix about little Freddie." "We don't want to send the pore little dear to the childern's home," broke in another. "It 's sich an awful place fur young childern--" "An' they do look so pitiful--" "An' learn so much weekedness." And, as is the manner of women in council, they all began talking at once, pouring into the new-comer's ears all the suggestions and objections, hopes and fears, that had been made or urged during their conference. To it all Miss Hester listened, and there was a soft glow on her face the while; but then she had been walking, which may account for the flush. The child, all unconscious that his destiny was being settled, was playing with two of the little Davises at the other end of the room. The three days of good food, good treatment, and pleasant surroundings had told on him, and he looked less forlorn and more like the child that he was. He was clean. His brown eyes were sparkling with amusement, and his brown hair was brushed up into the damp "roach" so dear to a woman's heart. He was, thus, a far less forbidding sight than on the morning of his mother's death, when, dingy and haggard, he rose from his dirty pallet. As she listened to the varied remarks of her associates, Miss Hester allowed her eyes to wander to the child's face, and for a moment a tenderer expression grew about her lips, but in an instant it was gone, and, as if she had been near committing herself to folly, she made amends by drawing her countenance into more than its usually severe lines. Mrs. Warren, who was always ready with a stab, and who had not forgotten her encounter of two days ago, spoke up with a little malicious laugh. "Miss Hester 'ain't got no family: mebbe she might take the child. 'Pears like she ought to be fond o' childern." Mrs. Davis immediately came to the rescue. "We don't expect no sich thing of Miss Hester. She 's never been around childern, an' don't know nothin' about takin' keer o' them; an' boys air hard to manage, anyhow." "Oh, I should think Miss Hester could manage 'most anything," was the sneering rejoinder.