"I am grateful, but, oh! I'm so lonely, and it's so hard not to have any mother like the other children. If Mrs. Murray would only kiss me good night sometimes, it would do me more good than pretty clothes or nice food."

"I've been thinking I'd let her go to school ever since I heard her showing Bob how to do his lessons. But Mother didn't think she could spare her," broke in Mr. Murray apologetically.

"If Ella would help a little, I guess I could allow it. Anyway, we might try for awhile, since she is so eager to learn," added his wife, anxious not to seem unjust in Jane's eyes.

"Well, Joe laughed at her as much as I did when the boys hunched up their shoulders the way she does," cried conscious-stricken Bob, who had just heard a sad little paragraph about her crooked figure and learned that it came from lugging heavy babies at the orphanage.

"I cuffed 'em both for it, and I have always liked Patty," said Harry, in a moral tone, which moved Ned to say—

"You'd be a selfish little rascal if you didn't, when she slaves so for you and gets no thanks for it. Now that I know how it tires her poor little back to carry wood and water, I shall do it myself, of course. If she'd only told me, I'd have done it all the time."

And so it went until the letters were done and they knew Patty as she was. Each felt sorry that he or she had not found her out before. Aunt Jane freed her mind on the subject, but the others continued to discuss it until quite an enthusiastic state of feeling set in, and Patty was in danger of being killed with kindness.

It is astonishing how generous and clever people are when once awakened to duty, a charity, or a wrong. Now everyone was eager to repair past neglect, and if Aunt Jane had not wisely restrained them, the young folks would have done something absurd.

They laid many nice little plans to surprise Patty, and each privately resolved not only to give her a Christmas gift but also to do the better thing by turning over a new leaf for the new year.

All the way home, they talked over their various projects, and the boys kept bouncing into the seat with Aunt Jane to ask advice about their funny ideas.

"It must have been rather lonesome for the poor little soul all day. I declare, I wish we'd taken her along!" said Mrs. Murray, as they approached the house through the softly falling snow.

"She's got a jolly good fire all ready for us, and that's a mercy, for I'm half frozen," said Harry, hopping up the step.