THAT HOMELY MISS PIKE.
The nurse did leave the room next day for a minute, and Flaxie ran up to the bed and nestled close to her mother.
“Now I’ll tell you all about it. I wanted to see you so, my heart ached and ached, and once I ran away home.”
“You did, darling? I’m glad I didn’t know it,” said mamma, kissing her.
“I didn’t tell anybody—much,” returned Flaxie. “I thought ’twasn’t polite. And then auntie bought me some red worsteds, and I made some mittens for a sick girl named Lucy, that can’t wipe her mouth, or go to school, or talk; and it made me just as happy!”
“That was right. Of course it made you happy to forget yourself and help somebody else.”
“Yes’m, I know all about that!” replied Flaxie, with a wise look. She had learned a deep lesson from those mittens.
“But I don’t ever want to go away again,” said she, dropping a tear on the pillow, “for there isn’t any you and Dr. Papa anywhere else.”
“Oh, some time you’ll want to.”
“No, mamma. When I said I’d go there to school with Milly I didn’t know about my baby sister. I ought to stay and take care of her, and never go away any more as long as I live,—not till I die, and go to heaven.”