“‘How strangely things come about, mamma?’ Kittie said that evening as they talked over this little incident.  ’Jack has laughed at me all winter for feeding the sparrows, and called them hateful, quarrelsome things, and said I should get nicely paid next summer when they drove away all the pretty song-birds that come about the house.  And now, don’t you see, mamma, one of the sparrows I have fed all winter—­I knew her right away by a funny little dent in her breast—­has done me such good service?  Why, I am paid a hundred thousand times over for all I have ever done for the sparrows.’”

“And what became of poor Brownie?” Nellie asked.  “I almost hoped Tufty would stay out with her, she was such a good little sparrow.”

“She lingered about the garden for a while, making a plaintive little noise; but when the family of Brownies came to dinner she ate her allowance, and flew away with them, apparently in good spirits.  But Tufty moped for a day or two, and, as long as he lived, showed great excitement at the sight of a flock of sparrows; and it is my private opinion that, if a second opportunity had been given him, Kittie Grant’s Tufty would have gone off for good and all with Captain Bobtail’s Brownie.”

Susie Elliot walked part of the way home with Florence Austin, and the two little girls, who were fast becoming intimate friends, talked over the events of the afternoon.

“How much your auntie knows about animals and birds!” said Florence; “she seems almost as fond of them as if they were people.”

“Yes,” Susie answered; “she was always fond of pets, papa says; and, ever since she has been ill, she has spent a great deal of time watching them and studying their ways.  I think it makes her forget the pain,”

“Is it the pain that keeps her awake at night, Susie?  You know she said this afternoon she was glad to hear the chippy-birds, because then she knew the long night was over; and she looked so white, and couldn’t get down those three little easy steps to pick up the baby-bird.  But she walks about the garden sometimes with a crutch, doesn’t she?”

“Oh, yes! and she’s better than when she first came here to live, only she never can be well, you know.  Today is one of her poor days; but she used to be so ill that she was hardly ever free from pain.  You never would have known it, though, she was always so cheerful and doing something to give us good times.”

“Can’t she ever be made well, Susie?  There’s doctors in town, you know, who cure every thing,” said the little girl.

Susie shook her head.

“Papa says she has an incurable disease;” and then seriously—­“I think if Jesus were here he would put his hands on auntie and make her well.”

CHAPTER X.

PARSON LORRIMER’S WHITE HORSE.

“And now for the story of the minister’s horse,” Mollie Elliot said, when Miss Ruth’s company of workers had assembled on the next Wednesday afternoon.  “I suppose he was an awfully good horse, which set an example to all the other horses in the parish to follow.  Say, Auntie, wasn’t he?”