“Sometimes; not often, though, mister. I took her with me onct jes’ after the coal oil man’s little girl died and his wife give me all her clothes, ’cause she said I’d been there and helped so much. So I kind a dressed the little one up and took her over, and while I worked she played with her—I mean with the other children, and when I got ready to start home I like to never got her to come. She cried most all night, so I don’t take her no more, but she’s gone over there now. I was over there today and done the cleaning and the ‘lady’ (that’s what I always call her) said if I would send the little one over she would give her a suit or two of her older girl’s underclothes. You see her girl’s younger than the kid, but she’s fatter, so I guess they’ll fit. Lord, I wish she’d come, mister, for now I’ve told you all and you’ll be goin’ and it’ll be awful lonesome here.” “I will wait until she comes, if you don’t object.” “No, I will be glad, and I guess I’d better put this soup on and warm it, for she’ll be cold and hungry.” A few moments and a rattle at the door announced the “kid’s” coming. She was a sweet-faced child, but the beauty which would have been visible under favorable circumstances was marred by the pinched, drawn expression which always attends want. Without ado, or bashfulness, she unrolled a bundle, shouting, “Look Granny, two for you and two for me. The lady had some of her own that was too big and she said you could have ’em.” And there, under the rays of light shed from the tin lamp, I saw articles of silk underwear with a monogram on the waistband, the same which adorned an invitation to a party for one night next week, which I had received that morning and now carried in my pocket. TALE FOUR. A WOMAN OF THIRTY-EIGHT. “Look at his pretty face for just one minute! His braided frock and dainty buttoned shoes; His firm shut hand, the favorite plaything in it— Then tell me, mothers, was’t not hard to lose And miss him from my side— My little boy that died? “How many another boy, as dear and charming, His father’s hope, his mother’s one delight, Slips through strange sicknesses, all fear disarming, And lives a long, long life in parent’s sight! Mine was so short a pride! And then—my poor boy died.” “Perhaps if he had lived,” she said, as she handed me a little tintype of a round-faced baby, whose laughing face was surrounded by ringlets of hair which looked as though they might have been silk. “Perhaps,” she repeated in a dreamy way, “it might have been different.”