cares what happens to her--"

"I never saw such a child," said Miss Cordelia, watching her start with
her father down the hill a few minutes later. "And the worst of it is, I
think we are partly to blame for it."

"Cordelia!" said Miss Patty. "How?"

"I mean in keeping her surrounded so completely with old people. When
everything is said and done, dear, it isn't natural."

"But we would miss her so much if we sent her to school--"

"Oh, I wasn't thinking of sending her to school--"

Miss Patty was quiet for a time.

"If we could find some one of her own age," she said at last, "whom she
could play with, and talk with--some one who would lead her thoughts into
more natural channels--"

This question of companionship for Mary puzzled the two Miss Spencers for
nearly a year, and then it was settled, as so many things are, in an
unexpected manner.

In looking up the genealogy of the Spicer family, Miss Patty discovered
that a distant relative in Charleston had just died, leaving a daughter
behind him--an orphan--who was a year older than Mary. Correspondence
finally led Miss Patty to make the journey, and when she returned she
brought with her a dark-eyed girl who might have been the very spirit of