we made such friends with them that they would come and peck at the window and ask to be let in.”

“Oh, Sara!” cried Lottie. “I should like to live here!”

When Sara had persuaded her to go downstairs again, and, after setting her on her way, had come back to her attic, she stood in the middle of it and looked about her. The enchantment of her imaginings for Lottie had died away. The bed was hard and covered with its dingy quilt. The whitewashed wall showed its broken patches, the floor was cold


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an’ I knowed it wouldn’t be a proper presink if I didn’t pin a card on— so I pinned Miss ‘Meliar’s.”

Sara flew at her and hugged her. She could not have told herself or anyone else why there was a lump in her throat.

“Oh, Becky!” she cried out, with a queer little laugh, “I love you, Becky—I do, I


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