"My Maria, that's her age, wouldn't." "Ellen hears everything and makes her own sense of it," said Andrew, "and the Lord only knows what she's made of this.

I hope she won't fret over it." "I wish my tongue had been cut off before I said anything before her," cried Eva.

"I know just what that child is.

She'll find out what a hard world she's in soon enough, anyway, and I don't want to be the one to open her eyes ahead of time." Ellen went to bed quietly, and her mother did not think she had paid much attention to what had been going on, and said so when she went down-stairs after Ellen had been kissed and tucked in bed and the lamp put out.

"I guess she didn't mind much about it, after all," she said to Andrew.