“If only,” Sara reflected, “she could once understand how awfully nice it is to give!” and then she planned that every Saturday Nellie might come to the greenhouse and get some roses from the gardener,--“and take them to the hospital. It is delightful to do that!” she said. And Nellie smiled faintly, and said, “Oh, certainly;” but only came once for the flowers. Nevertheless, Nellie Sherman had been “rescued.” Almost the same sort of rescue would have been achieved if Sara had fastened her into a strait-jacket and locked her into a room. But with Miss Wharton on one side, and her aunt on the other, day and night, the strange, boneless, unmoral little nature “kept straight;” and in a glimmering way the girl even began to see that there were certain views which were thought admirable, and once in a while she tried them on, as it were, and regarded herself in the mirror of Miss Wharton’s warm and joyous approbation. “I was so sorry not to see you at the club last night, Nellie,” Sara said to her one day, dropping in to buy a pair of gloves at the shop where Nellie kept the books. “My aunt wasn’t well,” said Nellie, “and I stayed at home to take care of her.” Such a light came into Sara Wharton’s sweet face, such tenderness and triumph and quick hope, that Nellie looked at her curiously. “That was right, Nellie, dear,” she said; “I’m so glad you did it. I’m _so_ glad,” she repeated, and went away, her eyes misty and her heart lifted up. She could not help going in to see Mrs. Sherman, making the excuse of bringing her some fruit because she was ill, but really to share her exultation. “Sick?” said Mrs. Sherman, “why, no, ma’am, I’m not sick, no more than I always am with worry about that there Nellie. She didn’t come home from the club last night until after eleven, and I was scared to death for fear she’d gone off with them Caligan girls--they’re fast girls, that’s what they are; and she’s struck up a great friendship with ’em. My, she’ll worry me into my grave, Nellie will. But she said you’d kept her late to help you putting away the club books,--and of course that was all right.” III “You owe something to your family, my child,” Mrs. Wharton said one day; “you make us all very anxious and worried by overworking so; it’s your duty to take a little rest.” “Mother, darling,” Sara began to protest, “I really can’t go away now; the Girls’ Club and”-- “You needn’t begin the list, my dear,” her mother interrupted--“I know them all. Dear, dear! Sara, when I was a girl, young women owed some duties to their parents, as well as to all the shiftless, worthless, improper people in the world.” “I trust I’m not a Borrioboola-Gha person,” murmured Sara. “Don’t be foolish, my child,” Mrs. Wharton said, “and use long words when your poor old mother don’t know what they mean”-- “You darling!” said Sara, and hugged her so tightly that Mrs. Wharton remonstrated.