fine pair of ponies," she said pleasantly, as they paused, breathless, at the top of the hill. "Why, you are quite exhausted! Take your friend into the kitchen, Margie, and give her a drink of milk. She looks warm and tired." Nettie followed Margery into the kitchen, stepping carefully over the freshly-scrubbed floor, for it looked so spotlessly clean that she feared her feet might soil it.

"Sit down in that little chair," said Margery, " while I go to the cellar for the milk. That is my chair, and this is father's-this big one. They always stand close together, because that's the way father and I like to be, always near to each other."

She took a small pitcher out of the closet, and, opening a door at one side of the room, went down a pair of stairs which led into the cellar. Nettie sat still, looking around the kitchen, afraid to move lest the aunt, good-tempered as she looked, should come in and scold her. By-and-by she heard the tread of Margery's feet upon the stairs, and soon her head appeared in the doorway. Just as she stepped over the sill she stumbled forward, and splashed some of the milk from the pitcher upon the floor.

"Oh my! oh my!" exclaimed Nettie, springing up with a face of great alarm; "what will we do? The aunt will see!" Why, what is the matter?" asked Margery, in astonishment.

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"The milk is spilt, and the aunt will be so angry! What can we do ?"

"We can wipe it up," said Margery, laughing. "Aunt Annie won't care. Where's the floor-cloth, I wonder? I'll ask her. Aunt An-nie!" she called, standing in the doorway."

"I'm coming," said Aunt Annie.

"I've spilled some milk: where's the floor-cloth ?"

"It's hanging on the line; take a clean one from the closet. If you can't reach the shelf, leave it, and I'll attend to it when I come in!" called back a pleasant voice.

"What a nice aunt!" said Nettie, who had listened in silent amazement to this conversation.

"Isn't she a dear?" said Margery, enthusiastically. “But I won't leave it for her to wipe up. I can't reach the shelf, but you can, because you're taller. There, that's the pile-that dark-looking heap of towels. That's right. Now we'll have it all nice and clean when she comes in."

"Now let us go and play," said Margery, when she had carefully cleaned the floor, and they had each drank a brimming glass of the fresh milk. "What shall we do? Do you like to keep house?"

"Yes, I guess so."

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Well, one of us will be the visitor, and the other will be the lady of the house. Let's play we were real ladies, shall we? Fine ladies, I mean. Will you be the mistress of the house, or the visitor?"

"I'll be the visitor," said Nettie, thinking that the easier part.

"Then you must go outside and play ring a bell. You know, in fine ladies' houses they have a bell, and some one to open the door when the bell rings. Now go out and ring."

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Jing-a-ling-a-ling," said Nettie, from without. She was beginning to enter into the pastime with some spirit. "Pretend that some one let you in," called Margery. "I'm in my parlour, playing on the piano."

Nettie came in, but stood still in surprise when her eyes fell on Margery. She had drawn her little chair in front of her father's, and, with an open hymn-book before her, supported on a huge tin pan which occupied the father's chair, was "playing on the piano."

And there she sat and sang to her visitor, keeping time upon the tin pan, with touches of her quick fingers, to the sweet tunes which warbled from her throat like the music of a bird. Hymn after hymn floated upon the still air,

for Nettie would not let her pause, but sat with eager, listening face, drinking in this new delight. And Aunt Annie, coming in from her work, stood at the open door, watching the two little figures as they sat there with the sunlight falling in upon them through the vines which covered the window, dropping in bits of golden light upon their dresses, hiding in Margery's fair curls, and flecking Nettie's darker hair; Margery lost to all around her in the joyous singing of her happy heart, and Nettie wholly engrossed in the sweetest music her ears had ever heard.

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Oh, that was so nice!" she said, with a long-drawn breath, when, tired at last, Margery closed her book.

"Aint they pretty songs?" said Margery. "I always feel as if I were near to my mother when I sing hymns. There is one that says,

Ye angels who stand round the throne,

And view my Immanuel's face;'

when I sing that it seems as if I was talking right to mother."

"What is Immanuel ?" asked Nettie.

"Immanuel? That is another name for our Saviour. You know who He is, don't you?"

"Didn't you know before? O poor Nettie! But you know now. Isn't it a beautiful story? And then to think it's all true, and that some day we shall see Him! Don't you wish He'd come down here to see us now,just us two little girls, all by ourselves? But that's a selfish wish, isn't it ? I'd like to have father and Aunt Annie see Him, and Mr. and Mrs. Thorn, and all the poor fisher-people, too. Wouldn't He be kind to them? Just think, Nettie: suppose we should see His shining feet standing there on the floor in that spot of sunlight! Oh, just think!"

She sat on her low seat, leaning forward, with her hands clasped and her eyes fixed on the golden spot, as if she almost expected to see the vision of which she spoke.

But the next moment she lifted her head, and, turning to Nettie with a smile, said, "We didn't play much after all, did we ?"

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'No; but this was so nice," said Nettie.

By-and-by they had dinner, and then Nettie saw Margery's father. He looked a little like Aunt Annie, and spoke so kindly to his young visitor that she began to wonder whether every one in the world, except her uncle and his family, was kind and good like the great God whom she had learned to love so much.

After dinner, Nettie said that she must go home. So Margery put on her hat, and walked over with her, and they parted at Mr. Thorn's gate, the closest and firmest of friends.

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NETTIE," said Mrs. Thorn, one morning, as the child sat beside her patiently trying to make a neat seam in a piece of work which had been given her to do, "my nephew, Harry Gray, is coming to spend the day with us."

"Is he, ma'am?" She spoke very quietly; but the colour flushed painfully over her face and neck.

"You don't look very well pleased," said Mrs. Thorn. "Don't you like boys ?"

"No, ma'am," replied Nettie, her thoughts going back to the persecution which she had endured at the hands of her cousins.

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'Perhaps you will like Harry better than other boys whom you may have seen. He is a very pleasant fellow.

But if you wish to do so you may go for Margery, and bring her down to help you to entertain him.”

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"That would do,” said Nettie. 'Shall I go now, Mrs. Thorn?"

"When your work is done. You will have plenty of time to finish it before Harry comes."

The two children had seen a great deal of one another since Nettie's first visit to Margery, and the shy little girl had lost all fear of Aunt Annie; so that on this morning, when she reached the house and found only the aunt in sight, she did not run away, as she would have done some time before, but walked boldly into the kitchen, and held up her face for a kiss as naturally as Margery herself would have done. Aunt Annie readily gave her permission to take Margery with her, and sent her to the back-yard to find her friend, who had gone out to feed the chickens. Nettie found her engaged in driving away the larger fowls from a brood of young chickens, and no persuasions could move her from her post until her pets had satisfied their hunger; but when they had finished their meal she gladly consented to go with her, and help her to take care of the dreaded playmate.

Harry Gray had already arrived when they reached the cottage, and he greeted the visitor as an old acquaintance. 'Hallo, Margery! is that you? Come on, let's have some fun. Why, who have you got here?"

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"This is Nettie Allen. Didn't you know she was living here?"

"Oh, yes, I forgot. Aunt Fannie told me about her poor little girl!"

The merry,

Nettie gazed at him in amazement. laughing face had sobered in a moment. No tender-hearted girl could have looked at her with more pity and sympathy. This boy was of a different make from those with whom she had had to do.

"Never mind," said he, coming toward her; "we 'll