JACK'S four rooms on the second floor, No. 30—
street, though plain and poor, compared
with the splendors of Oakwood, were very pleasant
rooms at all times; and on the morning of the day when
Edna was expected, they were swept and dusted, and put in
order much earlier than was usual for Aunt Luna, who was
not gifted with remarkably swift powers of locomotion.

The front room answered the double purpose of parlor by
day and sleeping room by night, the bed disappearing in the
shape of a broad, luxurious-looking sofa, or lounge, whose
neat covering of green and white chintz, with the soft, motherly
cushions, gave no hint of the bedding stowed carefully
away beneath. The carpet also was green, of a light, cheerful
pattern, while the easy chairs were covered with the same
material. Plain muslin curtains were draped gracefully back
from the windows, in one of which a bird-cage was hanging,
and in the other a wire basket of moss, from which the German
ivy hung in festoons, and then was trained back to the
wall, making for both the windows a beautiful cornice, and
reaching still further on to a pretty chromo which it surrounded
with a network of leaves. Over the mantel was

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another and a larger-sized chromo, and on the wall opposite
two or three first-class engravings. These, with a few
brackets and vases, a book-case of well-chosen books, and a
head of Schiller and Dante, completed the furniture of the
room, if we except the bright fire blazing in the grate and the
pretty lion's-head rug lying before the fender.

To the left of the front windows was a door opening into
the hall bedroom, Jack's room, with its single bed, its strip
of carpeting, its one chair, its little square stand, and on the
wall a porcelaintype of Georgie, whose black eyes, though
soft and beautiful, seemed to have in them a look of contempt,
as if they scorned their humble surroundings.

A narrow passage, with closets and shelves on either side,
divided the parlor from the room in the rear, which also did
double service as dining-room and kitchen, where Luna
baked, and washed, and ironed, and served her master's meals
with as much care and attention as if he had been the richest
man in the city, and dined each day from solid plate.

Old Luna's sleeping apartment was the little room or
closet off from the kitchen, which she kept so neat and tidy
that few would have shrunk from resting there in her easy
chair, or even from sleeping, if need be, in her clean, wholesome-looking
bed.

And here Jack lived content and happy till his mother
died. With her death a great light had gone from his dwelling,
for the mother and son were tenderly attached; but
whatever Jack suffered, he suffered alone, in the privacy of
his own room, or out in the dark streets, which he often traversed
at night after his work was done. There was seldom
a trace of sadness in his genial, good-natured face when he
went back to Annie, who, since her accident and his
mother's death, had at times been given to fits of weeping
and depression.

“I want somethin', and I don't know,” was what she had
said at first when questioned as to the cause of her grief.

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Gradually the want had resolved itself into an intense
longing for “sister Georgie,” whom the child regarded as
little less than an angel, almost worshipping the beautiful picture
which she sometimes had brought to her bed, where she
could see it and talk to it when Jack was away and Luna
busy in the kitchen.

With all the eagerness of a child, she had waited for
Georgie's coming; and when Jack's telegram from Iona had
told her there must necessarily be a delay, she cried herself
into a headache, and finally went to sleep with her white
cheek pressed against the portrait of Georgie, who was not
worthy of this child's pure love, and whose heart was as cold
and hard as the block of porcelain which shadowed forth her
marvellous beauty.

It was a very sad heart which Jack Heyford carried up the
stairs to his home on that day of his return, for he knew how
bitter was the disappointment in store for the expectant little
one, who had been dressed and waiting so long, and whose
blue eyes shone like stars when the familiar step was heard
upon the stairs. One look of welcome they gave to Jack,
and then darted past him out into the passage,—out into
vacancy; Georgie was not there.

“Oh, Jack,” and the eyes were like Georgie Burton's,
when looking afar off. “Where is sister? Didn't she
come with you?”

Jack told her where Georgie was as gently as possible,
and without a word or tone which sounded like blame, and
Annie listened to him; and when he said, “she bade me tell
you not to cry, but be a good girl, and she will soon come
to you,” the pretty lip quivered in a grieved kind of way, and
the breath came in quick gasps as the child tried to do her
sister's bidding.

“Is it naughty to cry? then I won't. I will try and be a
good girl, but oh, I am sorrier than Georgie can guess,”

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Annie said at last, and Jack felt something rising to his lips
like a curse upon the heartless woman this little child loved
so much.

He gave her the chocolates, and the doll, and the puzzle,
and the book, and sighed to see how quietly she put them
away without so much as tasting her favorite candies. And
then he told her about the terrible accident, and of Edna,
who, he said was so young, and pretty, and who was suffering
such terrible sorrow. Annie was interested, and the tears
she had repressed to please Georgie, flowed in torrents now,
as she said:

“I am so sorry for the lady, and I want to see her so much,
and I mean to pray for her that Heaven will make it better
for her sometime;” and that night, while Edna in her lonely
bed at Mrs. Dana's was weeping over her desolation and feeling
so friendless and alone, a little crippled child lay on its
back, and with hands clasped reverently, prayed for the poor
lady whose husband was killed; prayed that “Heaven would
bring it right some day, and make it better, and make her
well, and make her happy, and make her another husband for
Christ's sake.” “I reckon that will do,” Annie whispered
softly. “Mother said, `ask for Christ's sake, and believe
you'll have it, and you will,' but then”—and here a dark
doubt of unbelief began to creep in—“if that is so, why didn't
sister come? I asked God to send her, and I believed He
would just as hard, and He didn't. Maybe it's that lie I told
the other day;” and again the waxen hands were folded,
while the little trusting child asked, as she had done many
times, to be forgiven for the falsehood told to Jack two weeks
before.

She had confessed it to Jack, and he had forgiven her, and
promised not to tell Georgie when she came. She had also
confessed it to God many times, and asked Him not to let
her do such naughty things; and now when she told Him

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about it again, she felt as if that one sin was forgiven, but
away down in her heart was a shadow of unbelief, the first
she had ever known. She had trusted Heaven, and her faith
was firm as a rock that Georgie would come. But the contrary
had been the case; Georgie had not come; Heaven
had not heard and answered her, and she could not account
for it. Poor child, she is not the first or the only one who
has found it hard to understand just what Christ meant when
He said, “What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe
that ye shall receive them, and ye shall have them.”