Nelly's First Schooldays

Transcriber added book title and author to the cover image.
THE MARTIN AND NELLY STORIES.
NELLY’S FIRST SCHOOLDAYS.
BY JOSEPHINE FRANKLIN. AUTHOR OF “NELLY AND HER FRIENDS.”
BOSTON: FRED’K A. BROWN & CO., Publishers, 29 CORNHILL. 1862.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by Brown and Taggard, In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.
LIST OF THE “MARTIN AND NELLY STORIES.”
Not very far from Nelly’s home, stood a small, time-worn, wooden house.
It was not a pleasant object at which to look. A few vines that had been trained over one of the front windows, and a stunted currant-bush which stood by the door, were the only green things within the broken fence. In summer, the cottage looked bald and hot, from its complete exposure to the sun (no trees grew near to shade it), and in winter, the rough winds rattled freely around its unprotected walls.
In this house lived a family by the name of Harrow. It consisted of the widowed mother, a woman who had once moved in a far higher sphere of life, and her two daughters, Milly and Elinor. There was a son, too, people said, but he did not live at home, having had the ingratitude, some time before the Harrows moved to the village, to desert his home and run away to sea.
Mrs. Harrow and her children were very poor. No one knew but themselves how hard they found it to get work enough to earn their daily bread. The neighbors, among whom they were much respected, had long supposed from many outward signs that the family had no means to spare, but they were far from conjecturing that often, the mild, patient-looking Mrs. Harrow, and her two gentle girls, were losing their strength from actual famine. The little money they had, came to them through their own exertions; their needle-work was celebrated far and near for its delicacy and exquisite finish. In that small neighborhood, however, the sewing which was brought to them to undertake, did not amount to much, and the prices, too, were low, and provision-rates very high.