eyes on, old fashioned, but bearing in every painted rose that
clustered around it the most convincing evidence that Mrs. Chester
must at least have had a grand mother--when all was ready, and while
Mrs. Chester stood by the little supper stand pondering in her mind
if anything had been omitted, she heard the turn of her husband's
latchkey in the door.

"Just in time," she said, with one of those smiles which one never
sees in perfect beauty away from home.

But as she leaned her head gently on one side to listen, the smile
left her face. There was something heavy and unnatural in her
husband's tread that troubled her. She was turning toward the door,
when Chester opened it and entered the room with his overcoat off,
and bearing in his arms a mysterious burden.

"Why, Chester, how is this?--the night so cold, and your forehead
all in a perspiration. What is this wrapped in your coat?"

As Mrs. Chester spoke, her husband sat down near the door, still
holding the child. She took off his hat and touched her lips to his
damp forehead, while he gently opened his overcoat and revealed the
little thin face upon his bosom.

"See here, Jane, it is a poor little girl I found in the street
freezing to death."

"Poor thing! poor little creature!" said Mrs. Chester, filled with
compassion, as she encountered the glance of the great wild eyes that
seemed to illuminate the whole of that miserable face, "here, let