her?

What was to be done? she could not stand there, gazing about her; and there seemed no place to sit down, and nowhere to go. Where could father be? Why had he not stayed at home to welcome his little girl? or if too busy for that, surely the mother could have stayed, and he must have left a message for her.

If the little girls would only be good and try to tell her what all this strangeness meant! She made another effort to get into their confidence. She bent toward Susie, smiling as brightly as she could, and said: "Didn't you know, little girlie, that I was your sister Nettie? I have come home to play with you and help you have a nice time."

Even while she said it, she felt ten years older than she ever had before, and she wondered if she should ever play anything again; and if it could be possible for people to have nice times who lived in such a house as this. But Susie was in no sense won, and scowled harder than ever, as she said in a suspicious tone: "I ain't got no sister Nettie, only Sate, and Nan."

Hot as the room was, the neat little girl shivered. There was something dreadful to her in the sound of that name. She had forgotten that she ever used to hear it; she remembered her father as having called her 'Nannie'; that would do very well, though it was not so pleasant to her as the 'Nettie' to which she had been answering for seven years.

But how strange and sad it was that these little sisters should have been taught to call her Nan! could there be a more hateful name than that, she wondered. Did it mean that her step-mother hated her, and had taught the children to do so? She swallowed at the lump in her throat. What if she should cry! what would those children say or do, and what would happen next? she must try to explain.

"I am Nannie," she couldn't make her lips say the word Nan. "I have come home to live, and to help you!" She did not feel like saying "play with you," now. "Will you be a good girl, and let me love you?"

How Susie scowled at her then! "No," she said, firmly, "I won't."

There seemed to be no truthful answer to make to this, for in the bottom of her heart, Nannie did not believe that she could. Still, she must make the best of it, and she began slowly to draw off her gloves. Clearly she must do something towards getting herself settled.

"Won't you tell me where father is? or mother?" her voice faltered a little over that word; "maybe you can show me where to put my trunk; do you know which is to be my room?"

There were pauses made between each of these questions. The poor little stranger seemed to be trying first one form and then another, to see if it was possible to get any help.

Susie decided at last to do something besides scowl.

"Mother's sick. She lies in bed and groans all the time. She ain't got us no dinner to-day; Sate and me called her, and called her, and she wouldn't say anything to us. There ain't no room only this and that," nodding her head toward the bedroom door, "and the room over the shed where Norm sleeps. Norm is hateful. He didn't bring home no bread this noon for Sate and me; and he said maybe he would; we're awful hungry."

"Perhaps he couldn't," said poor startled Nettie. She hardly knew what she said, only it seemed natural to try to excuse Norm. But what dreadful story was this! If there was really a sick mother, why was not the father bending over her, and the house hushed and darkened, and somebody tiptoeing about, planning comforts for the night? She had seen something of sickness, and this was the way it was managed.

Then what was this about there being no room for her? Then what in the world was she to do? Oh, what did it all mean! She felt as though she must run right back to the depot, and get on the cars and go to her own dear home. To be sure she knew that her father was poor; what of that? so were the Marshalls; she had heard Mrs. Marshall say many a time that "poor folks can't have such things," in answer to some of the children's coaxings. But poverty such as this which seemed to surround this home was utterly strange to Nettie.

Still, though she felt such a child, she was also a woman; in some things at least. She knew there was no going home for her to-night. If she had the money to go with, and if there had been a train to go on, she would still have been stayed, because it would be wrong to go. Her father had sent for her, had said that they wanted her, needed her, and her father certainly had a right to her; and she had come away with a full heart, and a firm resolve to be as good and as helpful and as happy in her old home as she possibly could. And now that nothing anywhere was as she had expected it, was no reason why she should not still do right. Only, what was there for her to do, and how should she begin?

She stood there still in the middle of the room, the children staring. Presently she crossed on tiptoe to the bedroom door which was partly open and peeped in, catching her first glimpse of the woman whom she must call "mother."

Also she caught a glimpse of that dreadful bed; and the horrors of that sight almost took away the thought of the woman lying on it. How could she help being sick if she had to sleep in such a place as that? Poor Nettie Decker! She stood and looked, and looked. Then seeing that the woman did not stir, but seemed to be in a heavy sleep, she shut the door softly and came away.

I don't suppose that Nettie Decker will ever forget the next three hours of her life, even if she lives to be an old woman. Not that anything wonderful happened; only that, for years and years afterwards, it seemed to her that she grew suddenly, that afternoon, from a happy-hearted little girl of thirteen, into a care-taking, sorrowful woman. While she stood in that bedroom door, a perfect whirl of thoughts rushed through her brain, and when she shut the door, she had come to this conclusion:

"I can't help it; I am Nettie Decker; he is my father, and I belong to him, and I ought to be here if he wants me; and she is my mother; and if it is dreadful, I can't help it; there is everything to do; and I must do it."

It was then that she shut the door softly and went back and began her life.

There was that trunk out on the stoop. It ought to go somewhere. At least she could drag it into the kitchen so that the troops of children gathering about the door need not have it to wonder at any longer. Putting all her strength to it she drew it in and shut the door. By this time, Sate, who was getting used to her as she had gotten used to many a new thing in her little life, began to wail that she was hungry, and wanted some bread and some molasses.

"Poor little girlie!" Nettie said, "don't cry; I'll see if I can find you something to eat. Did she really have no dinner, Susie? Oh, darling, don't cry so; you will trouble poor mother."

But Susie had gone back to the scowling mood. "She shall cry, if she wants to; you can't stop her; and you needn't try; I'll cry too, just as loud as I can."

And Susie Decker who had strong lungs and always did as she said she would, immediately set up such a howl as put Sate's milder crying quite in the shade.

Nettie looked over at the bedroom door in dismay; but no sound came from there. Yet this roaring was fearful. How could it be stopped? Suddenly she plunged her hand into the depths of a small travelling bag which still hung on her arm, and brought forth a lovely red-cheeked peach. She held it before the eyes of the naughty couple and spoke in a determined tone: "This is for the one who stops crying this instant."

Both children stopped as