servant had died.

Meg had watched with interest the arrival of the new lodger's properties; and she had listened, fascinated, to his lusty voice, singing to the accompaniment of hammering, and rising above the flurry of settling down.

On the third evening Mr. Standish, who had observed the little figure cowering in the dusk, and had once or twice given to it a friendly nod, invited her to enter. Meg held back a moment, then shyly walked in.

She had a general impression of books and writing materials, pipes, and prints on all sides, and of an atmosphere impregnated with the perfume of tobacco.

After another pause of smileless hesitation, she took the footstool her host drew for her by the fire. At his invitation she told him her name, and gave a succinct account of her general mode of life. She admitted, with monosyllabic brevity, that she liked to hear him sing, and that it would please her if he would sing for her now. She sat entranced and forgetful of her surroundings as he warbled:

"Nellie was a lady—
Last night she died,"

and followed the negro ballad with a spirited rendering of the "Erl King."

At his invitation she renewed her visits. She was tremendously impressed when he told her that he wrote for the papers; and was dumb with amazement when he showed her, in a newspaper, the printed columns of which he was the author.

They had been acquainted about a week, when Meg broke the silence set upon her lips, and spoke to her new friend as she had never spoken to human being before.

Mr. Standish had recited for her the ballad of the ghostly mother who nightly comes to visit the children she has left on earth, and till cock-crow rocks the cradle of her sleeping baby. The young man was astonished at the expression of the child. Her cheeks were pale; she breathed hard; her round opened eyes were fixed upon him.

"I wish mother would come just like that to me," she said abruptly.

"Your mother—is she dead?" he asked gently.

She nodded. "She's dead. I never saw her—never. I'd love to see her just a-coming and standing by my bed. I'd not be a bit frightened."

"But if you have never seen her you would not know she was your mother," he replied, impressed by the passionate assertion of her manner.

"Oh, I'd know her! I'd know her!" said the child, with vivid assurance. "Soon as she'd come in I'd know her. She was a lady."

"A lady!" he repeated. "How do you know? What do you mean?"

"Tilly told me. Tilly's dead," answered Meg with ardor. "She told it to me once before; and I went to see her at the hospital, and she said it again. She said, 'Meg, your mother was a lady—the sweetest, prettiest, ladiest lady'—that's what she said; 'and, Meg, be good for her sake.'" She paused, her eyes continuing to hold his with excited conviction. "That's how I know she was a lady," Meg resumed; "and I know what a lady is. The Misses Grantums down there"—infusing scorn into her voice as she pointed to the floor to indicate she meant lodgers who lived below—"they're not ladies though they've fine dresses; but they have loud voices, and they scold. I go to the corners of the streets. I watch the carriages. I see the ladies in them; and when I see one gentle and a-smiling like an angel, I say mother was like one of these. That's how I'd know what she'd be like. And," she added more slowly, lowering her voice to a confidential whisper and advancing a step, "I have a picture of her. Would you like to see it?"

"I would," he answered, thinking that at last he was approaching a clew to the mystery.

She dashed off, and in a moment returned with something carefully wrapped up in tissue paper, and gently drew out a limp picture, that she held out at arm's length before the young man, keeping it out of his reach.

"There, I'm sure she'd be like that—all smiling, you see. And those beautiful curls, are they not lovely? and those large eyes and those roses? I'm sure she'd be just like that."

"But let me hold it—just with my finger tips," he pleaded, as the child jealously held the print away from him.

She slowly relinquished it to him and stood at his elbow.

"That's a picture taken out of a book—not a portrait," he said.

"I picked it up. Some lodgers had gone away. I found it in a corner. Isn't it lovely? I'm sure she'd be just like that," reiterated Meg.

Mr. Standish was silent a moment. He was moved, yet he felt impelled to speak words of wisdom to the child. Mooning about corners of streets watching ladies drive past, and nursing those queer, foolish, ambitious ideas about her mother was not likely to lead to any good. He thought the whole story was probably without a grain of truth, the absurd fabrication of some old woman's brain, and likely to prove hurtful to Meg in giving her false notions concerning her duties in life.

He paused, revolving his words, anxious not to hurt, yet deeming it incumbent upon him to expel this foolish fancy.

"My dear child," he said at last, "why do you imagine your mother was like that picture, or like one of those ladies in the carriages? For all you know they may be lazy, vain, and selfish. It is not the pretty dress that makes the lady, or the face either. Is it not far better and more reasonable to think of that dear mother, whom you never saw, as one of God's own ladies? These ladies are found in all sorts of conditions, sometimes in caps and aprons, sometimes in beautiful bonnets, very often with brave, rough hands. What is wanted to make a lady is a kind, honest heart."

"No, that's not being a lady," interrupted the child, with a flash and a toss of her head. She spoke with decision; but her voice faltered as if she had received a shock. Taking the picture from the young man's hand, she began carefully, and with a trembling elaborateness, to replace it in its coverings. "Jessie's good, and so was Tilly. They work hard, and scrub, and run about on errands. They're not ladies. A lady's quite different," continued Meg, suddenly facing him and speaking with vehemence and clearness. "She's rich, and never scolds or cheats. She does not work at all—not a bit; people work for her and drive her about, but she does nothing herself. She has never dirty hands, or her cap all untidy, or looking all in a fuss. She does nothing but smile and look beautiful, like an angel," concluded Meg triumphantly, reiterating her favorite simile.

"Meg," said the young fellow, seeing more clearly the necessity to root out this absurd ideal from the child's mind, "you are talking very foolishly. A lady is, indeed, not necessarily an angel. You say a lady must be rich. Now, if your mother was rich, why are you poor? Would she not have left you her money in dying, and you would have been rich like her?"

"I don't know anything about that," said the child, growing a little pale, and beginning once more to fidget with the fashion-plate.

"It is for your good, Meg, that I speak," resumed the young man. "You must wish to be like your mother; and you cannot grow up good and hard-working and honest if you think your mother was rich and left you poor, with no one to look after you or care for you."

"It was not her fault," said the child faintly.

"It would have been her fault," he answered severely, shaking his head. "My dear Meg, put away this foolish idea. Call up your mother to your mind as a good, toiling woman; one of God's ladies, as I called her before. Try to be like her. Lay aside the thought that she was one of those carriage ladies."

"I won't!" interrupted the child, standing pale and upright, clutching the