Page:Live and Let Live.djvu/36

 bright side, Jemmie. I shall come home every Sunday."

"Every Sunday; and oh, how long it will seem before Sunday comes! But it is not of myself I'm thinking, though it does make the tears come so when I think you won't be here to ask for what I want, and always to look pleasant, and leave your work, and come and read to me, and sing to me when the other girls want to be doing something else, and I can't bear to trouble mother — and you are never tired drawing me, and I can go to sleep if my breast aches ever so much when you bend over me, and stroke, and smile, and stroke as if it were always pleasant to do it; but it's not for myself only, Lucy," and here he sobbed aloud; "but I cannot bear to think you must go away from your own home, and work all day for people that will only pay you, and not love you as we do."

"Not as you do," replied Lucy, making an effort to speak calmly; "but I shall try to make them love me a little — it would be hard indeed to work for nothing but money, and I do not intend to do so. Mother says she never saw a family yet where there was not someone to love, and some good to do besides just work — I shall try — it's not very agreeable to have a hungry stomach, but a hungry heart must be a great deal worse — don't you think so, Jemmie?"

Jemmie smiled through his tears. "I should think so, Lucy, but I don't know anything about it, for we have always plenty of the best food for our hearts, if we have not anything else."

"We must thank mother for that; and now