"Dear me!" was Dorry's unfeeling comment; "then I'd let him go hungry, I certainly should."
"Oh, no, you couldn't be cruel to a poor sick rooster!" Here Ellen Eliza pressed the uneasy fowl to her heart. "May be, he has a sore throat."
"Do you know what I think?" said Dorry, quite disregarding the patient's possible affliction.
"What?" asked Ellen Eliza, plaintively, as if prepared to hear that her feathered pet was going into a rapid decline. And Dorry went on:
"I think that if people with tender hearts would remember their sisters sometimes, it would be—"
"What do you mean?" interrupted the astonished Ellen Eliza, releasing the now struggling bird as she spoke.
Dorry laid her hand kindly on the little girl's shoulder.
"I'll tell you," she said. "If I were you, I'd help Charity more. I'd take care of this dear little brother sometimes. Don't you notice how very often she is obliged to stay from school to help with the work, and how discouraged she feels about her lessons?"
"No!" answered Ellen Eliza, with wide-open eyes. "I didn't ever notice that. I think it's nice to stay home from school. But, anyhow, Charity wouldn't trust me. She dotes on Jamie so. She's always been afraid I'd let him fall."
Dorry smiled.