CHAPTER XXIII.
A CHARITABLE INSTITUTION.
When Ralph got back to Miss Nancy Sawyer's, Shocky was sitting up in bed talking to Miss Nancy and Miss Semantha.

His cheeks were a little flushed with fever and the excitement of telling his story; theirs were wet with tears.

"Ralph," whispered Miss Nancy, as she drew him into the kitchen, "I want you to get a buggy or a sleigh, and go right over to the poor-house and fetch that boy's mother over here.

It'll do me more good than any sermon I ever heard to see that boy in his mother's arms to-morrow.

We can keep the old lady over Sunday." Ralph was delighted, so delighted that he came near kissing good Miss Nancy Sawyer, whose plain face was glorified by her generosity.
But he did not go to the poor-house immediately.