Page:On the Hill-top (1919).pdf/28

 "But how did she get so—dreadful?" asked Marjorie suspiciously.

"What difference?" asked the girl, putting up her head and looking at Marjorie with very level eyes. "She is wet, ragged and hungry and she needs my help. Isn't that enough?"

Marjorie's eyes fell, then she came forward and took the child's other hand. "I think she needs mine too," she said, softly; and together they walked along, helping the little one over the rough places on the way, which hurt its bare feet, and guiding it better than it knew how to go alone; and Marjorie tied a soft kerchief over a long scratch upon its arm.

The Dream was walking along on Marjorie's other side; and presently, when she stopped to help the little one down over a steep place in the trail, the Dream sniffed. "Is it grateful for all your trouble?" he asked.

Marjorie looked at him as the girl had looked at her. "I don't know and I'm not asking," she said. "She needs me and I'm helping her,—that's my part, to do as wisely as I know how; the rest of it is her problem. We're both of us learning lessons, and the more that we learn by love and kindness, the less we'll have to learn by hard knocks; and she's got bruises enough now, so I'm not going to add to them by fussing at her for fear that I won't get enough flattery to pay me for my trouble."

"But wouldn't it do her good to be grateful?" asked the Dream.

"It probably would, and she probably is; and