Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 1.djvu/58



ITTLE TESSA sat alone by the fire, waiting for her father to come home from work. The children were fast asleep, all four in the big bed behind the curtain; the wind blew hard outside, and the snow beat on the window-panes; the room was large, and the fire so small and feeble that it didn't half warm the little bare toes peeping out of the old shoes on the hearth.

Tessa's father was an Italian plaster-worker, veiy poor, but kind and honest. The mother had died not long ago, and left twelve-year old