“She’s a good little gal; looks consid’able like you; but you warn’t never such a quiet puss as she is,” he said one day, as the child was toddling about the room with an old doll of her mother’s lately disinterred from its tomb in the garret. “She is like her father in that. But I get quieter as I grow old, uncle,” answered Christie, who sat sewing near him. “You be growing old, that’s a fact; but somehow it’s kind of becomin’. I never thought you’d be so much of a lady, and look so well after all you’ve ben through,” added Uncle Enos, vainly trying to discover what made Christie’s manners so agreeable in spite of her plain dress, and her face so pleasant in spite of the gray hair at her temples and the lines about her mouth. It grew still pleasanter to see as she smiled and looked up at him with the soft yet bright expression that always made him think of her mother. “I’m glad you don’t consider me an entire failure, uncle. You know you predicted it. But though I have gone through a good deal, I don’t regret my attempt, and when I look at Pansy I feel as if I’d made a grand success.” “You haven’t made much money, I guess. If you don’t mind tellin’, what have you got to live on?” asked the old man, unwilling to acknowledge any life a success, if dollars and cents were left out of it. “Only David’s pension and what I can make by my garden.” “The old lady has to have some on’t, don’t she?” “She has a little money of her own; but I see that she and Letty have two-thirds of all I make.” “That ain’t a fair bargain if you do all the work.” “Ah, but we don’t make bargains, sir: we work for one another and share every thing together.” “So like women!” grumbled Uncle Enos, longing to see that “the property was fixed up square.” [Illustration: “SHE’S A GOOD LITTLE GAL! LOOKS CONSID’ABLE LIKE YOU.”] “How are you goin’ to eddicate the little gal? I s’pose you think as much of culter and so on as ever you did,” he presently added with a gruff laugh. “More,” answered Christie, smiling too, as she remembered the old quarrels. “I shall earn the money, sir. If the garden fails I can teach, nurse, sew, write, cook even, for I’ve half a dozen useful accomplishments at my fingers’ ends, thanks to the education you and dear Aunt Betsey gave me, and I may have to use them all for Pansy’s sake.” Pleased by the compliment, yet a little conscience-stricken at the small share he deserved of it, Uncle Enos sat rubbing up his glasses a minute, before he led to the subject he had in his mind. “Ef you fall sick or die, what then?” “I’ve thought of that,” and Christie caught up the child as if her love could keep even death at bay. But Pansy soon struggled down again, for the dirty-faced doll was taking a walk and could not be detained. “If I am taken from her, then my little girl must do as her mother did. God has orphans in His special care, and He won’t forget her I am sure.”