CHAPTER VIII.

_SARAH'S PLANS._

THE next day was Wednesday—the day appointed for Mrs. Cassell's visit. Fanny remembered it the moment she opened her eyes, and did not exactly know whether she were glad or sorry.

"I should be glad, only for going up to the spring," she thought, "but perhaps, after all, Annie's grandmother won't let her go, and then I shall have a good excuse. I don't care: I mean to have a good time, anyway. And even if Sarah does come to the spring, grandma need not know that I expected her. How bad she did feel yesterday! I wonder what ailed her? I shouldn't think she need mind so much. They can't do anything to her."

In truth, Fanny was quite incapable of understanding Sarah's feelings. With Fanny, partly from her natural disposition and more from the way in which she had been brought up, self was everything. She judged of everything as it affected herself. What pleased her or afforded her any advantage was right; whatever displeased or annoyed her was wrong. She would not have shed a tear at finding out her best friend in the greatest crime or meanness, so long as it did not affect herself.

She liked Sarah in her fashion, because Sarah's wit and wild stories amused her, and because she was, on the whole, an agreeable playmate, and it never troubled her in the least to think that Sarah was a very naughty girl and in a fair way of going to utter destruction. She loved her father as well as she was capable of loving anybody, but the most disgraceful failure on his part would have affected her less unpleasantly than his refusal to pay fifty dollars for some dress or trinket on which she had set her heart. In fact, self was her idol, her god. Whoever sacrificed to that god was right in her eyes; whoever treated her deity with neglect or disrespect was wrong, no matter how good he might otherwise be.

It was very different with Sarah Leyman. Utterly wild and untaught as she was and had been ever since she was eight years old, the poor child had a heart capable of devoted attachment and of great sacrifices. Till she was eight years old, Aunt Sally had been her all—her friend, teacher, protector, and playmate, all in one. Mrs. Leyman often said before her sister and daughter that Sarah took after her aunt a great deal more than she did after her mother, and predicted that she should turn out just such another saint—saint being a term of the deepest reproach in the vocabulary of people like Mrs. Leyman.

Everything that Sarah knew she learned from Aunt Sally, who taught her to say her prayers and read her Bible, and to know that she had a Father in heaven who would always love her and take care of her. But Aunt Sally died at thirty, because she hadn't any ambition according to her sister-in-law—in reality, of hard work and anxiety and grief and shame. Poor Sarah was left without a friend. Two or three people would have taken her for her aunt's sake, Mrs. Lilly among the rest, but her father would not hear of binding her out, and nobody wanted to be at the trouble of dressing and teaching and becoming attached to her, only to have her taken away as soon as she was old enough to become useful. Moreover, Mr. Leyman made it a condition that Sarah should not go to church or Sunday-school or be "taught any priestcraft and superstition."

So Sarah grew up with no education except what she picked up herself by reading such books as fell in her way and by going for a few weeks at a time to the district school. Here she learned to write and cipher a little. Aunt Sally had taught her to read almost before she could remember, and she heard the Bible read and read it in turn with the other children, and now and then an earnest teacher would try to put into the child's mind some sense of the truths of religion, so that she was not absolutely ignorant on that subject.

But during the last year, she had lost that small chance. The three or four small district schools in and around the village had been consolidated into one grand union school, attended by all the young ladies of the village, and Sarah was too proud to show herself among those who were so much better dressed and educated than herself.

Sarah's father was what he called a freethinker, which in his case meant nothing more nor less than an impudent, reckless creature, regarding the laws neither of God nor man. He made a regular business of ostentatiously breaking the Sabbath, and as far as possible, he brought up his children in the same way. The training had produced its legitimate fruits. One son was already in the penitentiary, and the other had escaped a like fate only by running away and going to sea.

Mrs. Leyman was pretty much what Mrs. Lilly had described her. She had come of a decent family, and there were those who were willing to show her kindness for the sake of her father and mother. But Mrs. Leyman was one of those people who take two or three miles for every ell that is given them. If she had an invitation to any house in the village or at the Corners—the little hamlet which had grown up at the slate quarry—she made such an invitation a pretext for a dozen visits at least. If anybody gave her a pail of skim milk or buttermilk one day, she would send the next for a piece of cheese or butter, or to borrow a washboard or flat-iron; and those who were weak enough to lend to her seldom saw their property again.

Her chief pleasures in life were strong green tea and scandal. A small property which still remained to her from her father's estate supplied her with means for purchasing the first. For the second she was chiefly indebted to Miss Clarke, the washerwoman and tailoress employed in good families for her abilities in doing up fine muslins and making children's clothes. Miss Clarke was an inveterate collector of news and scandal, and the worse a story was, the better it pleased her. She was, to put it in plain English, an inveterate and malicious liar, and she improved her natural gifts in that direction by taking opium. Such was Mrs. Leyman's chosen friend, and from her did she obtain all those stories of the secret sins and shortcomings of church-members and respectable people with which she entertained her husband.

Sarah listened to her mother's tales because she liked anything in the shape of a story, and because, being sensible of the degradation of her own family, she took a sullen satisfaction in thinking that others were no better. But she despised her mother and almost hated her father, and she would have run away from home long before now, only for Ally, her poor little sickly sister. It was Ally who kept Sarah at home for the few hours that she ever spent there from the beginning to the end of warm weather. For her sake, Sarah recalled all she could of Aunt Sally's hymns and verses, her Bible, and other stories. For Ally she learned Sunday-school hymns and borrowed Sunday-school books from the other children, and gathered flowers and berries and everything that could comfort and amuse the child in her sick times.

It was Mrs. Lilly's kindness to Ally which had made Sarah like her in the first place. Poor Sarah was a very naughty girl—there was unfortunately no doubt of that—but she would have been a great deal worse only for Ally, and for the half-remembered lessons learned at Aunt Sally's knee. But for these things and for an undefined something—she could hardly tell what—which had lately been creeping over her, and making her feel a kind of hope that she might some time become better and happier, she would have run away and left the family to its fate.

What Sarah found to love in Fanny it would, perhaps, be hard to say, but she did love her, and would have done anything for her. Fanny was very pretty, for one thing. She had nice manners and a pleasant way of speaking when she was pleased, and she could tell tales of a world of which Sarah knew nothing, and which she fancied must be more wonderful and beautiful than her own. Sarah soon found out that Fanny was shallow, and she had begun to feel, rather than suspect, that she was false: but she was one of those people who, having loved once, love always, and she was still devoted to Fanny with her whole heart and soul.

Sarah could hardly have told what led her to go to the meeting on Sunday evening. She had never attended before, though all the neighbours went, especially Mrs. Lilly, and she had a feeling that everything Mrs. Lilly did must be good. She had been quite serious in what she had said to Fanny after the adventure of the bull. She did want to be a good girl, a true Christian like Mrs. Lilly and Aunt Sally, but she did not know how to begin. Perhaps she might find out at the meeting. So she made up her mind to go and try, and she found out that, at any rate, it was very pleasant, though rather awful. Those things which she had mimicked for Fanny's amusement—Deacon Crane's broad accent and Mr. Howe's bad grammar—did not now strike her as so absurd because she felt as she never had done, that both the deacon and Mr. Howe were talking to some very real Presence: not the less real because unseen. The singing, the Bible reading, the speaking, all touched her heart, and the kindness with which she was met by everybody, especially Mrs. Lilly, increased the charm.

They had all seemed so glad to see her there, and had asked her to come again. Sarah made up her mind that she would go again, that she would somehow have a Bible and read it and teach Ally to read it, and she would try her best to be a good Christian girl. And then to find out that these people who had seemed so glad to see her were laughing at her and plotting to separate her from Ally and put her in prison, to find out that Mrs. Lilly was capable of such treachery—Mrs. Lilly, whom she had always considered as the very model of everything good,—this it was, and no hurt vanity, which had caused the violent burst of feeling which Fanny could not understand. This it was which made her feel as if there were no real truth or goodness anywhere, and no use in trying to do right, since religious people were, after all, no better than any one else. This was the mischief Fanny had done, and at which she might well have stood appalled if she had at all understood it.

But she did not. She was sorry to have made Sarah feel so badly, but she was glad to have prevented any chance of an explanation between Sarah and her grandmother. To be sure, this was not much like the missionary work over which she had been dreaming lately, and which was one day to make her famous and admired. But perhaps Sarah might not have been good, anyway, or perhaps she would become a Christian, after all. And, anyhow, she could not help it now, so there was no use in thinking about it any more.

[Illustration: _On the Mountain._ "Here is a nicer cup than that."]

This was always Fanny's way of consoling herself and quieting her conscience when it happened to be disturbed: "I can't help it now, so there is no use in worrying myself about it."

She jumped up and dressed herself as nicely as possible, and ran down stairs to help her grandmother with the milk without stopping to say her prayers, as she had been very careful to do lately.

Mrs. Cassell had promised to come early, and by ten o'clock the carriage was seen by Fanny's eager eyes coming slowly up the long ascent. Mrs. Lilly's farm lay mostly on the first rise of the mountain, as it was called, a kind of broad terrace ascending from the river, which ran through the valley, to a nearly level plain of some quarter of a mile in extent. Besides this, Mrs. Lilly owned a broad strip of meadow-land along the river, and a large extent of pasture and forests extending to the "No man's land" and cloudland on the top of the great mountain which overlooked Hillsborough.

To Annie, coming from Detroit, where the land is literally as flat as a pancake and the river looks as if it had been spilled on the top of the ground, this country of mountains and swift-running streams, "of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills," was a land of enchantment. It was as beautiful as fairyland the little girl thought, but, like fairyland, it was also rather alarming in respect that one never knew exactly what might be coming next. She had received the announcement that they were going to make a visit up on the mountain with some inward misgivings. And when she found herself going up and up without seeming ever to come to the end, she began to wish herself at home. But when she finally arrived and was met by Mrs. Lilly's cordial welcome, all her fears vanished, and she was quite ready to respond to the old lady's kindness, and to enjoy herself thoroughly.

"And where is Hugh?" asked Mrs. Lilly. "I hope he is not going to disappoint us."

"Hugh will come up this afternoon," said Mrs. Brandon. "He was all ready this morning, and indeed came with us as far as the post-office, when he found a bundle of proof-sheets lying in wait for him, so he had to return and devote himself to them. He will ride up this afternoon as soon as he finishes his work. But proof-sheets are like time and tide: they wait for no man."

"No, I suppose not," said Mrs. Lilly. "Well, I am sorry, but it is not as if this was the only day there was, so you needn't look so doleful, Willy. But come, you had better get your things off. You know the way up stairs, Emma."

As soon as Annie had disposed of the piece of cake which Mrs. Lilly was sure she must need after her ride, Fanny took possession of her. She was fond of children in her selfish way—that is, she liked to play with them as if they were dolls, and amuse herself with them as long as they were "good,"—that is, just so long as they did exactly what she wished.

Annie would have been quite contented to look out of the windows and amuse herself with the Indian curiosities, of which Mrs. Lilly had a great collection, but it was one of Fanny's ways that she never could enjoy herself in the presence of grown people. She could not be easy till she had drawn Annie out of the parlour and carried her off to her own room, where she got out her doll to amuse her visitor. They played with it for some time, and then Fanny proposed that they should go out.

"Can we go and see the raccoon?" said Annie. "Uncle Hugh said Willy had a tame raccoon."

"Oh yes, you shall see everything, and I will take you to the prettiest place you ever saw," replied Fanny, who felt very amiable and patronizing. "I will show you the spring up in the woods, and everything."

"That will be nice," said Annie, "but we must ask grandma first."

"Of course," said Fanny; "I will go and ask her now while you dress the doll."

"Take Annie up to the spring?" repeated Mrs. Lilly, aloud, after Fanny had whispered in her ear. "Why, yes, I suppose so, if Mrs. Cassell has no objection."

"Where is the spring?" asked Mrs. Cassell.

"Only a little way off—just upon the side of the hill. You can almost see it from this window. It is a very pretty place, and there is no danger for them to run into. Fanny spends half her time there, I think. But, Fanny, remember, you must not go into the woods."

"No, ma'am," answered Fanny.

"And don't leave Annie alone anywhere," said Mrs. Cassell. "Remember she has always been brought up in the city, and knows nothing about taking care of herself. Promise me that you will keep close by her."

"I will," answered Fanny. "I will not leave her alone a minute. Please let Willy ring the bell in the garden, grandma, when you want us to come in."

"Very well," said Mrs. Lilly; "we shall not have dinner till two, so you will have a nice time to play and enjoy yourselves."

Fanny put on Annie's hat and jacket, and then led her out to see the raccoon and the guinea hens. As they were looking at the former, Willy came up.

"Now, Willy, you may just go away," said Fanny, sharply. "We don't want you around after us."

Annie looked surprised. She was not used to hear people spoken to in that way.

"It is my raccoon, and I suppose I have a right to look at it," returned Willy.

"Are you Willy Beaubien?" asked Annie.

"Yes," replied Willy, rather shyly, but added, presently, "I have seen you at Sunday-school. Don't you want to see Cooney eat? He looks real cunning."

"Oh yes," exclaimed Annie, much interested. "What does he eat?"

"Oh, anything that he can get. I will run and ask Oney for some cake for him."

"Come, Annie, let's run away while he is gone," said Fanny.

"I don't want to," answered Annie; "I want to see the raccoon eat."

Fanny was tempted to speak sharply, but recollecting herself, she said, "I shouldn't think you would care about that. Come, we sha'n't have any time at all."

But Annie had a little will of her own as well as Fanny, and she would not stir till Willy came back with the cake, and till she had seen the raccoon eat, and had agreed with Willy that he was very cunning and looked as if he knew everything.

"Just as if he knew what we were talking about!" said Annie. "I guess you like animals very well, don't you, Willy?"

"Yes," answered Willy. "I was going to ask you whether you would let me see your Guinea pigs, some time."

"Yes, indeed, and give you a pair, if you like," replied Annie, smiling; "I am sure you would be good to them."

"I don't believe grandma will let him have them," said Fanny, growing cross, as usual, as soon as she was not the chief object of attention. "She says Willy has so many playthings now that he doesn't attend to his work."

"I guess you stretched that a little," said Willy. "Anyhow, I can ask her."

"Well, do come, Annie, if you are ever coming," said Fanny.

The truth was, she was growing uneasy. She had seen Sarah going up to the spring some time before, and was afraid of her losing patience and putting into execution her threat of coming down to the house.

Annie saw that for some reason Fanny was really annoyed, and she at once gave up looking at the guinea hens and followed her conductor through the garden and across the fields.

"See, here is the spring," said Fanny, when they reached the little mossy dell so often spoken of. "See how it comes running out of the mountain-side. Isn't it pretty?"

"Beautiful!" said Annie. "How clear and cool it is! Is it good to drink?"

"Yes, very. There is a cup here somewhere. Oh, here it is." And Fanny produced a somewhat rusty tin cup from under a stone, rinsed it, and filled it from the spring for Annie to drink.

"Here is a nicer cup than that," said Sarah Leyman, coming out from among the bushes, holding in her hand a large scallop shell, such as is frequently brought from Florida and Key West by travellers. "I found it this morning among some things in our garret, and brought it up on purpose for Annie to drink out of."

"Did you?" asked Annie, looking wonderingly at the dark, handsome girl. "That was very good of you. But how did you know that I was coming up here to-day?"

"Oh, a little bird told me," answered Sarah, playfully. "The little bird told me that a fairy was coming up to visit the spring, and would want something pretty to drink out of. Here, drink, little fairy."

"Oh how nice!" said Annie, after she had drank from the shell, which Sarah held to her lips. "I don't think I ever tasted such good water."

"More people than you have thought so," said Sarah. "I was reading a letter last night that your aunt wrote to my aunt from India, in which she said she would give all the fruit in India for one drink from this very spring."

"Was that my aunt Eugenia, and did she write to your aunt?" asked Annie, very much interested. "How nice that is! I should think that ought to make us some sort of cousins, shouldn't you?"

"Very distant cousins," answered Sarah, laughing. "Your name 'is' Annie, isn't it?"

"Yes—Annie Eugenia Mercer. I was named for my aunt and grandmother."

"And where do you live when you are at home, Annie Eugenia?"

"In Detroit," replied Annie.

"I suppose it is a great way off?"

"Oh yes; we were a night and two days coming, and we stopped one night at Albany. And oh, Fanny," exclaimed Annie, "you know I told you how that girl stole my doll on the cars?"

"Yes," answered Fanny. "Why?"

"Don't you think, day before yesterday, Uncle Hugh came up from the cars, and brought a great parcel directed to me. And when I opened it, there was a beautiful doll all dressed, and a letter from this very girl telling me she was sorry she had been so wicked, and she hoped I would forgive her, and that my doll was spoiled, but she had sent me another. Wasn't that nice?"

"Very nice," said Fanny.

"I didn't care so very much about the doll; though, after all, one can't have too many dolls," said Annie, sagely. "But it was nice to think she should be sorry and want to make up for what she had done. Grandma said it was beginning in the right way if Celia—the girl's name was Celia—really meant to be a good girl."

"What was beginning right?" asked Sarah—"Sending back the doll or saying she was sorry?"

"Both," replied Annie. "Grandma said—I am not sure that I can tell it just right—"

"Never mind," said Sarah, who seemed very much interested. "Tell it as well as you can."

"She said we must confess all our sins to God if we want them forgiven; and if they are against our neighbours—that is, if they have done harm to anybody, you know—"

"Yes," said Sarah, "I understand."

"Then we must go to them and try to make up, and if we have done them any damage, we must make it good. I didn't quite understand that at first, and grandma said if I had borrowed Mary Patterson's scissors, and lost or spoiled them, it wouldn't be enough to say I was sorry; I must buy her a new pair if I possibly could. So she said it was right in Celia to send me a new doll."

"I see," said Sarah. "Don't you think you are a happy little girl to have such a good grandma?"

"Yes, indeed!" said Annie, with emphasis. "Mary Patterson says I ought to be thankful every day that I have such good friends to take care of me."

"Who is Mary Patterson?" asked Fanny. She was not very easy under this conversation, and she was, moreover, in a great hurry to improve the time in finding out all about Annie's family history.

"Mary is my nurse," replied Annie. "She has lived at our house ever since I can remember, and we think everything of her."

"How many servants does your mother keep?" was Fanny's next question.

"Oh, let me see: there is Mary Patterson and old Mary the cook—only we don't call her 'old' Mary because mamma says it isn't polite, so we all call her Willis—and Jane the chambermaid, and Arthur, papa's servant, that was with him in the war, and John the coachman."

"Your father must be very rich to keep so many servants."

"Well, I suppose he is," replied Annie, simply. "I heard Uncle Harris say that papa was worth almost a million of dollars. That is a great deal, isn't it?"

"Why, yes, quite a good deal," said Sarah, laughing.

"My father is worth two millions," said Fanny, "and there are people on our street richer than that. But I didn't suppose anybody out West was as well off as that. I thought only poor people went West, and that they lived in log houses and never had anything nice."

"I don't think there are any log houses in Detroit, though I have seen them in the country," said Annie. "Detroit is a very pretty place, though not as nice as it is here, because it is all so flat. There isn't the least little bit of a hill anywhere round. If that hill Mr. Willson lives on were in Detroit, they would think it was a mountain."

"And what would they say to such a mountain as this?" asked Sarah.

"I don't know; I suppose they would be afraid of it, as I was when I first came here," said Annie.

"Oh, you needn't be afraid; he is a pretty good old mountain," said Sarah, who seemed very much taken with the pretty little child. "See what the mountain sent you by me." And going to a ledge of rock close by a kind of natural shelf, she produced two of her pretty little baskets, one filled with red raspberries, the other with blueberries.

"Oh how pretty!" exclaimed Annie. "Did the mountain send them to me? I am sure he was very kind."

"Yes; he told me to tell you that you were welcome to eat his berries and drink out of his spring, but you must never climb up on his back, because that is no place for little girls."

"Well, I won't. Tell him so, with my love. I should like to do something for him. I might work him a slipper—you know they talk of the foot of a mountain sometimes—only I shouldn't know where to get a piece of canvas big enough."

"How silly you are!" aid Fanny, who never could understand a joke. "The mountain isn't alive. It is only a great heap of rocks and dirt."

"I know it," said Annie. "I was only making believe."

Annie ate her berries, and then began admiring the mosses which grew all about the spring.

"I know where there are much prettier mosses than these," said Sarah, "but the place is too far for you to walk. Don't you want to sit here a few minutes while Fanny and I go and get you some snail shells?"

"I don't know," said Annie, rather doubtfully. "If you won't be gone long."

"Oh no, only a few minutes. You just sit still here or play about on the rocks, but don't go away from the spring, whatever you do. Come, Fanny, I want to speak to you. I have something to tell you and to ask you."

"I don't know about leaving Annie. I am afraid she will get into some mischief or other," said Fanny, hesitating a little, though she was very anxious to hear what Sarah had to tell. She had seen all the morning, through all Sarah's playfulness with Annie, that she had something more than usual on her mind, and she was very desirous of finding out what it was.

"I don't see what mischief she can get into," said Sarah, looking about her and considering. "There are no snakes. The wicked old bull is shut up in his stable, and the cattle are all away at the farther pasture. Even if she should take a notion to run home, she can't miss her way. You are not afraid to stay here a few minutes, are you, Annie?"

"No," said Annie—"only don't be long."

"Oh no; we will be back in a very few minutes."

"And you will bring me some snail shells, won't you?"

"Yes, if I can find them, and I am pretty sure I can. After all, Fanny, perhaps we had better not leave her alone. She is such a little thing she might get scared, and I can tell you some other day."

Fanny thought she saw in these last words an indication that Sarah had repented and did not mean to tell her what she had on her mind, and this made her all the more anxious to find out what it was. So she answered, decidedly,—

"Yes, I shall go, too. Mind, Annie, that you don't stir away from this place or you will get lost."

To do Sarah justice, she had not the least idea that in leaving Annie alone at the spring she was exposing her to any danger. The children she was acquainted with played in the woods all day long and made excursions after berries and flowers without any fear. She knew that there were no snakes and no wild animals bigger than a rabbit to be met with at this time of year, and she had really taken pains to assure herself that the bull was safely shut up in his stable. She wanted very much to speak to Fanny, and she did not see that she was likely to have another chance very soon.

Fanny was much more to blame than Sarah, for she had promised faithfully not to leave Annie alone for ever so short a time, and she ought to have kept her word. She knew this very well, but she said to herself that no harm would come to her, and that she must hear what Sarah had to say.

Sarah led the way in silence a short distance up the mountain, and then turned aside into the woods.

"Well?" said Fanny, as Sarah stopped and began gathering some wintergreen shoots. "Well?" she repeated, impatiently, as Sarah did not speak. "What do you want to say to me?"

"Fanny," said Sarah, "I want you to do me a very great favour."

"Well, what?"

"You told me you had a good deal of money of your own."

"Yes; my father gave me twenty dollars, and I have only spent a little of it. Why?"

"I want you to lend me ten dollars," said Sarah. "There! The murder is out."

Fanny looked very much taken aback. "Why do you want ten dollars?" she asked, with a good deal of suspicion in her tone.

"I will tell you all about it if you will listen," said Sarah. "Sit down here on this log."

The two girls sat down side by side, and Sarah went on in rather a low tone:

"After I left you yesterday, I went up in our garret and pulled out all Aunt Sally's old letters to read. There were a good many from Annie's aunt Eugenia in India, and from Mary Jane Merrill and other people. But at last I found the letters I wanted. They were from my Aunt Caroline, my mother's sister, over in Concord. She used to be a schoolteacher, but I knew she had married since, and I wanted to know what sort of woman she was. The letters were very nice indeed, and sounded a good deal like Aunt Sally herself. Then I asked ma about Aunt Caroline, and ma said she had married a rich man and felt above all her relations. But I kept on asking questions till I found out that Aunt Caroline had lost all her own children, and that she had wanted to adopt me or Ally when we were little, but father would not let either of us go. I made ma show me the last letter she had from Aunt Caroline, and it was a real good letter, and I made out that she had always helped ma a great deal."

"Well," said Fanny, impatiently, "what has that to do with my lending you ten dollars?"

"Just this," replied Sarah: "I have been thinking the matter over, and I have made up my mind what to do. If you will lend me ten dollars, I will go and see Aunt Caroline myself, and try to persuade her to take Ally to live with her. I don't think pa would care now. He don't like Ally because she is so plain and sickly. Then, if I succeed, I will get a place to work in a mill or somewhere, and take care of myself."

"Why don't you write to your aunt?" asked Fanny.

"Because I can't write very well, and I want to see Aunt Caroline and talk to her myself. If I have ten dollars, I can get myself a decent frock and hat, so that she need not be ashamed of me, and the rest of the money will pay my fare to Concord and back."

"If your aunt is rich, I should think she would lend you the money," said Fanny.

"I don't want to begin by asking her for money for myself," said Sarah, colouring. "She doesn't know anything about me. But if you will lend it to me, I will pay you back the very first money I earn."

"Oh, of course," said Fanny, sarcastically.

Sarah's eyes flashed. "Don't you believe me?" she asked.

Fanny was rather alarmed, and continued, in a superior but more friendly tone, "I suppose you think you would, but this is all nonsense, Sarah. It is the greatest wild-goose chase I ever heard of. Suppose you go to Concord, what good will it do? Your aunt won't do anything for you. As likely as not, she won't let you come into her house. And as for her adopting Ally, you might as well expect her to adopt a black baby. I know, because my mother is one of the managers of the orphan asylum, and I have heard her say that the people who take children always want a healthy, pretty child with curly hair."

"And what becomes of all the ugly, straight-haired children?" asked Sarah.

"Oh, I don't know. They get bound out, or something. Anyhow, nobody wants them, and I am sure your aunt wouldn't want Ally. You see it is all nonsense, Sarah. You couldn't do anything if you tried."

"Then you won't lend me the money, Fanny?" said Sarah, in a tone of deep mortification and disappointment.

"No, because I don't think there would be any use in it. You had a great deal better stay where you are, or else write a letter to your aunt and ask her to send you some money."

"I can't write, I tell you," said Sarah, flushing crimson. "I can't put one sentence together and spell the words right." She paused a moment, and then spoke again with more earnestness than before, and in a pleading tone very different from her usual off-hand manner:

"Come, Fanny, do lend me this money. It won't be very much to you even if you have to do without it a year, and it will be everything to me. I can't leave home while Ally is there, whatever happens, and I feel almost sure that Aunt Caroline will take the child if I can only see her and tell her how things are, which I couldn't do in a letter if I could write ever so well. If Ally is only safe, I know I can find some place where I can earn money. I can learn any kind of work easily enough if I only give my mind to it, and I will send you every dollar I earn. Come, Fanny, don't say 'No.' Why won't you lend it to me?"

"Because I want it myself," said Fanny, coming to the true reason at last. "I have only that twenty dollars to last me for pocket-money till my father comes home, and I am always wanting candy or something that grandma won't buy for me. As likely as not you never would pay me, and then I should lose it altogether."

"Don't you think I am honest, Fanny? I risked more than that for you the day we met the bull," said Sarah, with a quiver in her voice. "I didn't stop to think whether you would ever pay me."

"That is different," said Fanny.

"Yes, there is a good deal of difference between risking your life and risking ten dollars," said Sarah, dryly. "Fanny, why did you ever make friends with me if you don't care enough for me to do as much as that for me?"

"Because I had no one else to play with, and it was so stupid at grandma's with nobody to speak to," said Fanny, speaking the truth for once.

"Then, if you had any one else to play with—anybody more genteel—you wouldn't care any more about me?"

"Well, no, I don't know that I should. You see, Sarah, you are very different from me."

"Very different," said Sarah, rising—"so different that the less we have to do with each other, the better."

As she spoke, she went a little farther into the wood and began to turn over the fallen sticks and leaves.

Fanny followed her, feeling rather uneasy.

"What are you looking for?" she asked.

"Some shells for Annie," answered Sarah, without looking up. "You had better go to her. She may get tired of staying alone."

"I don't want to go without you," said Fanny.

Sarah did not reply; but having found what she sought, she turned back.

"I suppose you are very angry with me?" said Fanny, presently.

"No, I am not," returned Sarah. "I am angry at myself for ever having cared for you."

"You say so because you are vexed at not getting the money," said Fanny, "but I think you are very unreasonable."

"If you say another word, I will box your ears," said Sarah. In another moment she added, more gently, "I am sorry I said that. I shall never see you again, and I did love you dearly, Fanny."

The tone in which Sarah said this showed that she at least was not heartless.

"What makes you say that?" asked Fanny.

"Because it is true. I shall go to Aunt Caroline's, if I have to walk every step. Besides, I never want to see you again—never!"

As Sarah said these words, the two girls came in sight of the spring. Annie was not there.