“It was very provoking that seamstresses and such people would get married, like the rest of the world,” Mrs. Greenough said, half in fun and half in earnest. Her fall sewing was just coming on, and here was Lizzie Brown, who had suited her so nicely, going off to be married; and she had no resource but to advertise, and take whomsoever she could get. No less than ten women had been there that day, and not one would answer.

“There comes Number Eleven; you will see,” she cried, as the bell rang.

Kitty Greenough looked on with interest. Indeed, it was her gowns, rather than her mother’s, that were most pressing. She was just sixteen, and since last winter she had shot up suddenly, as girls at that age so often do, and left all her clothes behind her.

Mrs. Greenough was right,—it was another seamstress; and Bridget showed in a plain, sad-looking woman of about forty, with an air of intense respectability. Mrs. Greenough explained what she wanted done, and the woman said quietly that she was accustomed to such work,—would Mrs. Greenough be so kind as to look at some recommendations? Whereupon she handed out several lady-like looking notes, whose writers indorsed the bearer, Mrs. Margaret Graham, as faithful and capable, used to trimmings of all sorts, and quick to catch an idea.

“Very well indeed,” Mrs. Greenough said, as she finished reading them; “I could ask nothing better. Can you be ready to come at once?”

“To-morrow, if you wish, madam,” was the answer; and then Mrs. Graham went away.

Kitty Greenough was an impulsive, imaginative girl; no subject was too dull or too unpromising for her fancy to touch it. She made a story for herself about every new person who came in her way. After Number Eleven had gone down the stairs, Kitty laughed.

“Isn’t she a sobersides, mamma? I don’t believe there’ll be any frisk in my dresses at all if she trims them.”

“There’ll be frisk enough in them if you wear them,” her mother answered, smiling at the bright, saucy, winsome face of her one tall daughter.

Kitty was ready to turn the conversation.

“What do you think she is, mamma,—wife or widow?” And then answering her own question: “I think she’s married, and he’s sick, and she has to take care of him. That solemn, still way she has comes of much staying in a sick-room. She’s in the habit of keeping quiet, don’t you see? I wish she were a little prettier; I think he would get well quicker.”

“There’d be no plain, quiet people in your world if you made one,” her mother said, smiling; “but you’d make a mistake to leave them out. You would get tired even of the sun if it shone all the time.”

The next day the new seamstress came, and a thoroughly good one she proved; “better even than Lizzie,” Mrs. Greenough said, and this was high praise. She sewed steadily, and never opened her lips except to ask some question about her work. Even Kitty, who used to boast that she could make a dumb man talk, had not audacity enough to intrude on the reserve in which Mrs. Graham intrenched herself.

“He’s worse this morning,” whispered saucy Kitty to her mother; “and she can do nothing but think about him and mind her gathers.”

But, by the same token, “he” must have been worse every day, for during the two weeks she sewed there Mrs. Graham never spoke of any thing beyond her work.

When Mrs. Greenough had paid her, the last night, she said,—

“Please give me your address, Mrs. Graham, for I may want to find you again.”

“17 Hudson Street, ma’am, up two flights of stairs; and if I’m not there Tom always is.”

“There, didn’t I tell you?” Kitty cried exultingly, after the woman had gone. “Didn’t I tell you that he was sick? You see now,—‘Tom’s always there.’”

“Yes; but Tom may not be her husband, and I don’t think he is. He is much more likely to be her child.”

“Mrs. Greenough, I’m astonished at you. You say that to be contradictious. Now, it is not nice to be contradictious; besides, she wouldn’t look so quiet and sad if Tom were only her boy.”

But weeks passed on, and nothing more was heard of Mrs. Graham, until, at last, Thanksgiving Day was near at hand. Kitty was to have a new dress, and Mrs. Greenough, who had undertaken to finish it, found that she had not time.

“Oh, let me go for Mrs. Graham, mamma,” cried Kitty eagerly. “Luke can drive me down to Hudson Street, and then I shall see Tom.”

Mrs. Greenough laughed and consented. In a few minutes Luke had brought to the door the one-horse coupÉ, which had been the last year’s Christmas gift of Mr. Greenough to his wife, and in which Miss Kitty was always glad to make an excuse for going out.

Arrived at 17 Hudson Street, she tripped up two flights of stairs, and tapped on the door, on which was a printed card with the name of Mrs. Graham.

A voice, with a wonderful quality of musical sweetness in it, answered,—

“Please to come in; I cannot open the door.”

If that were “he,” he had a very singular voice for a man.

“I guess mamma was right after all,” thought wilful Kitty. “It’s rather curious how often mamma is right, when I come to think of it.”

She opened the door, and saw, not Mrs. Graham’s husband, nor yet her son, but a girl, whose face looked as if she might be about Kitty’s own age, whose shoulders and waist told the same story; but whose lower limbs seemed curiously misshapen and shrunken—no larger, in fact, than those of a mere child. The face was a pretty, winning face, not at all sad. Short, thick brown hair curled round it, and big brown eyes, full of good-humor, met Kitty’s curious glance.

“I am Tom,” the same musical voice—which made Kitty think of a bird’s warble—said, in a tone of explanation. “I can’t get up to open the door because, don’t you see, I can’t walk.”

“And why—what—Tom”—

Kitty struggled desperately with the question she had begun to ask, and Tom kindly helped her out.

“Why am I Tom, do you mean, when it’s a boy’s name; or why can’t I walk? I’m Tom because my father called me Tomasina, after his mother, and we can’t afford such long names in this house; and I can’t walk because I pulled a kettle of boiling water over on myself when I was six years old, and the only wonder is that I’m alive at all. I was left, you see, in a room by myself, while mother was busy somewhere else, and when she heard me scream, and came to me, she pulled me out from under the kettle, and saved the upper half of me all right.”

“Oh, how dreadful!” Kitty cried, with the quick tears rushing to her eyes. “It must have almost killed your mother.”

“Yes; that’s what makes her so still and sober. She never laughs, but she never frets either; and oh, how good she is to me!”

Kitty glanced around the room, which seemed to her so bare. It was spotlessly clean, and Tom’s chair was soft and comfortable—as indeed a chair ought to be which must be sat in from morning till night. Opposite to it were a few pictures on the wall,—engravings taken from books and magazines, and given, probably, to Mrs. Graham by some of her lady customers. Within easy reach was a little stand, on which stood a rose-bush in a pot, and a basket full of bright-colored worsteds, while a book or two lay beside them.

“And do you never go out?” cried Kitty, forgetting her errand in her sympathy—forgetting, too, that Luke and his impatient horse were waiting below.

“Not lately. Mother used to take me down into the street sometimes; but I’ve grown too heavy for her now, and she can’t. But I’m not very dull, even when she’s gone. You wouldn’t guess how many things I see from my window; and then I make worsted mats and tidies, and mother sells them; and then I sing.”

Kitty stepped to the window to see what range of vision it offered, and her eye fell on Luke. She recalled her business.

“I came to see if I could get your mother to sew two or three days for me this week.”

Tom was alert and business-like at once.

“Let me see,” she said, “to-day is Tuesday;” and she drew toward her a little book, and looked it over. “To-morrow is engaged, but you could have Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, if you want so much. Please write your name against them.”

Kitty pulled off her pretty gray glove, and wrote her name and address with the little toy-pencil at the end of her chatelaine; and then she turned to go, but it was Tom’s turn to question.

“Please,” said the sweet, fresh voice, which seemed so like the clear carol of a bird, “would you mind telling me how old you are? I’m sixteen myself.”

“And so am I sixteen,” said Kitty.

“And you have a father and mother both, haven’t you?”

“Yes, indeed,” said Kitty.

“Oh, I’ve only mother, but she is good as two. Must you go now? And I wonder if I shall ever see you again?”

“Yes, you will see me again,” answered Kitty cheerily; and then, moved by a sudden impulse of her kind, frank young heart, she bent over and touched her lips to the bright, bonny face of the poor girl who must sit prisoner there for ever, and yet who kept this bright cheerfulness all the time.

“Oh mamma, I’ve had a lesson,” cried Kitty, bursting into her mother’s room like a fresh wind, “and Tom has taught it to me; and he isn’t he at all—she’s a girl just my age, and she can’t walk—not a step since she was six years old.”

And then Kitty told all the sad, tender little story, and got to crying over it herself, and made her mother cry, too, before she was through.

After dinner she sat half the evening in a brown study. Finally she came out of it, and began talking in her usual impulsive manner.

“Can’t we have them here to Thanksgiving, mamma? There’s not a single pretty thing in that house except Tom herself, and the rose-bush; and every thing did look so bare and clean and poverty-stricken; and I know they’ll never afford a good dinner in the world. Oh, say yes, mamma, dear! I know you’ll say yes, because you’re such a dear, and you love to make every one happy.”

“Yes; but, first of all, I must love to make papa happy, must I not? You know he never wants any company on Thanksgiving but grandpa and grandma and Uncle John. I’m sure you would not like to spoil papa’s old-fashioned Thanksgiving Day.”

Kitty’s countenance fell. She saw the justice of her mother’s remark, and there was no more to be said. She sat thinking over her disappointment in a silence which her mother was the one to break.

“But I’ve thought of a better thing, Puss,” said this wise mamma, who was herself every bit as tender of heart as Kitty, and cared just as much about making people happy. “No doubt Mrs. Graham and Tom would just as much prefer being alone together as papa prefers to be alone with his family; and how will it suit you if I have a nice dinner prepared for them, and let you go and take it to them in the coupÉ? Mrs. Graham is hardly the woman one could take such a liberty with; but I’ll beg her to let you have the pleasure of sending dinner to Tom.”

“Oh, you darling!” and Mrs. Greenough’s neck-ruffle suffered, and her hair was in danger, as was apt to be the case when Kitty was overcome with emotion, which could only find vent in a rapturous squeeze.

Before bed-time Kitty had it all planned out. She was to go in the coupÉ and take Bridget and the basket. Bridget was to mount guard by the horse’s head while Luke went upstairs with Kitty and brought down Tom for a drive; and while they were gone Bridget would take the basket in, and see that every thing was right, and then go home.

Mrs. Greenough consented to it all. I think she enjoyed the prospect of Tom’s ride, herself, just as much as Kitty did. While Mrs. Graham was sewing there she made the arrangement with her, approaching the subject so delicately that the most sensitive of women could not be hurt, and putting the acceptance of both drive and dinner in the light of a personal favor to Kitty, who had taken such a fancy to Tom.

The last afternoon of Mrs. Graham’s stay Kitty called her mother into her room. Mrs. Greenough saw spread out upon the bed a thick, warm, soft jacket, a woollen dress, a last year’s hat.

“You know them by sight, don’t you, mother mine? They are the last winter’s clothes that I grew away from, and have taken leave of. May Tom have them?”

“Yes, indeed, if you’ll undertake to give them to Tom’s mother.”

Kitty had seldom undertaken a more embarrassing task. She stole into the sewing-room with the things in her arms.

“You’ll be sure, won’t you, Mrs. Graham, not to let Tom know she’s going to ride until I get there, because I want to see how surprised she’ll look?”

“Yes, I’ll be sure, never fear.”

“And, Mrs. Graham, here are my coat and hat and dress that I wore last year, and I’ve grown away from them. Would you mind letting Tom wear them?”

“Would I mind?” A swift, hot rush of tears filled Mrs. Graham’s eyes, which presently she wiped away, and somehow then the eyes looked gladder than Kitty had ever seen them before. “Do you think I am so weakly, wickedly proud as to be hurt because you take an interest in my poor girl, and want to put a little happiness into her life,—that still, sad life which she bears so patiently? God bless you, Miss Kitty! and if He doesn’t, it won’t be because I shall get tired of asking Him.”

“And you’ll not let her see the hat and jacket till I come, for fear she’ll think something?”

At last Mrs. Graham smiled—an actual smile.

“How you do think of every thing! No, I’ll keep the hat and jacket out of sight, and I’ll have the dress on her, all ready.”

When Thanksgiving came Kitty scarcely remembered to put on the new fineries that Mrs. Graham had finished with such loving care; scarcely gave a thought to the family festivities at home, so eager was she about Tom’s Thanksgiving. She was to go to Hudson Street just at noon, so that Tom might have the benefit of the utmost warmth of which the chill November day was capable.

First she saw the dinner packed. There was a turkey, and cranberry-sauce, and mince-pie, and plum-pudding, and a great cake full of plums, too, and fruit and nuts, and then Mr. Greenough, who had heard about the dinner with real interest, brought out a bottle of particularly nice sherry, and said to his wife,—

“Put that in also. It will do those frozen-up souls good, once in the year.”

At last impatient Kitty was off. Bridget and the basket filled all the spare space in the coupÉ, and when they reached Hudson Street, Luke took the dinner and followed Kitty upstairs, while Bridget stood by the horse’s head, according to the programme. He set the basket down in the hall, where no one would be likely to notice it in opening the door, and then he stood out of sight himself, while Kitty went in.

There was Tom, in the warm crimson thibet,—a proud, happy-looking Tom as you could find in Boston that Thanksgiving Day.

“I have come to take you to ride,” cried eager Kitty. “Will you go?”

It was worth ten ordinary Thanksgivings to see the look on Tom’s face,—the joy and wonder, and then the doubt, as the breathless question came,—

“How will I get downstairs?”

And then Luke was called in, and that mystery was solved. And then out of a closet came the warm jacket, and the hat, with its gay feather; and there were tears in Tom’s eyes, and smiles round her lips, and she tried to say something, and broke down utterly. And then big, strong Luke took her up as if she were a baby and marched downstairs with her, while she heard Kitty say,—but it all seemed to her like a dream, and Kitty’s voice like a voice in a dream,—

“I’m sorry there’s nothing pretty to see at this time of year. It was so lovely out-doors six weeks ago.”

Through Beach Street they went, and then through Boylston, and the Common was beside them, with its tree-boughs traced against the November sky, and the sun shone on the Frog Pond, and the dome of the State House glittered goldenly, and there were merry people walking about everywhere, with their Thanksgiving faces on; and at last Tom breathed a long, deep breath which was almost a sob, and cried,—

“Did you think there was nothing pretty to see to-day—this day? Why, I didn’t know there was such a world!”

The clocks had struck twelve when they left Hudson Street; the bells were ringing for one when they entered it again. Bridget was gone, but a good-natured boy stood by the horse’s head, and Kitty ran lightly upstairs, followed by Luke, with Tom in his arms.

Kitty threw open the door, and there was a table spread with as good a Thanksgiving dinner as the heart could desire, with Tom’s chair drawn up beside it. Luke set his light burden down.

Kitty waited to hear neither thanks nor exclamations. She saw Tom’s brown eyes as they rested on the table, and that was enough. She bent for one moment over the bright face,—the cheeks which the out-door air had painted red as the rose that had just opened in honor of the day,—and left on the young, sweet, wistful lips a kiss, and then went silently down the stairs, leaving Tom and Tom’s mother to their Thanksgiving.