She touched the white walls softly, and passed her hand over the pink mats on the bureau with wondering awe.

And then she curled up in the white bed when Abby bade her, as like a kitten as anything could be.

"Oh, you are good, good!" cried the child, whom the warmth and comfort and kindness seemed to have lifted into another world from the cold, sordid one in which she had lived so long.

She caught the kind hard knotted hand, and kissed it; but Abby snatched it away, and blushed to her eyebrows, feeling that something improper had occurred.
"There! there!" she said, half confused, half reproving.

"You don't want to do such things as that! I've done no more than was right, and you alone and friendless, and night coming on.