"I?" asked May, looking with a smile of astonishment at her. "I am your cousin, May Brooke; an orphan like yourself, dear, to whom our uncle has given house and home."
"Are you happy here?"
"Very happy. I have things to contend with sometimes which are not altogether agreeable, but I trip along over them just as I do over muddy places in the street, for fear, you know, of soiling my robe, if I floundered in them!" said May, laughing. Helen did not understand the hidden and beautiful meaning couched under May's expressions; she had heard but little of her baptismal robe since the days of her early childhood, and had almost forgotten that she was "to carry it unspotted to the judgment-seat of Christ."
"I am glad you are here—such a nice, soft-voiced little one," said
Helen, passing her long, white hand over May's head.
"I am glad, too; so come with me, and take something warm. Your supper is on the kitchen hearth. Come," said May, rising.
"Where—to the kitchen? Do you eat in the kitchen?"
"I lunch there sometimes; it is a very nice one."
"Excuse me; I do not wish any thing."
"But a cup of hot tea, and some nice toast, after your fatiguing, wet journey," argued May.
"Nothing, I thank you," was the haughty reply.