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My heart was always hungry, ever since I can remember, for something to love, or to love me, and I'd take a half-dead kitten to my bosom, but how could I feed it? I've done that more than once, and wept bitterly when the poor thing was dead.

It seems as if everything I love dies; but then Aunt Mercy says, "it's all for the best."

I think I said I was seventeen. For five years I have lived out; I was in the Home till I was twelve, put there when I was seven. I learned to read, and write, and work there, but because I was a plain child, nobody seemed to care much for me.

There were certain days when the Home was open to visitors. O, then, how I tried to make myself look pretty. But where was the use? My hair would be red and my face freckled, and my hands large and coarse. It didn't help the matter any by putting them under my apron, they had to be pulled out.

I used sometimes to see the matron and the teachers, on the sly, kissing some of the little girls -- and petting them, but who could blame them, for they were the pretty ones. It seemed as if they never would have any trouble, no matter what they did. And when people came there to adopt children, and many of them got comfortable homes in that way, there'd be pretty Bessie and Daisy with their lovely curls, and eyes, and hands, and feet, as beautiful as they could be. People, maybe, don't think that children hear and notice what they say, and dream, and think of it afterwards, but they do, oh! yes, I know they do. I remember what one man said, "I couldn't have that child's face opposite me at the table," and I know he meant me, though he tried to turn my attention away. Didn't I want to sink into the earth, then. I'd have covered my face all over with a mask if I could, I seemed so hateful to myself. I have cried and sobbed for hours, because I felt that people could not love my face.

Pretty Bessie, I won't envy her, poor child, for she was as sweet as a buttercup. How could people help loving her? There was no trouble in finding her a pleasant home, and love, and tenderness. A fair-faced lady fancied her, one day. She had no children, she said, and must take Bessie. So Bessie went in a beautiful carriage, and I watched it gliding down the long street, with wretched feelings. Not that I envied Bessie, oh I no; I was fond of her, with everybody else; I was pleased with her lovely face, and graceful clinging ways. In a month from that time, the sweet pale lady brought Bessie to see us; that was very kind, but we should hardly have remembered that we ever saw her beautiful face before, she was dressed in such a lovely manner. Her little gown was of sky-blue silk with white trimming, and I never saw anything half so sweet as her little hat full of roses.

But that wasn't the best of it. The sweet lady seemed to love her so dearly, and everybody fondled and kissed her. O, that was the best of it ! My mouth watered to see it, and though I tried very hard to be pleased, something did so cry out in my heart that I had to go away by myself And I missed all the nice fruit the kind lady sent, for they called me sullen, and said my disposition was bad, and that I was an envious girl.

O, if anybody had kissed me, then, I think, I'd been willing to die.

So time went on, and nobody wanted me for a pet. I grew a great girl, and strong, and my hands were only fit for flat irons, and mops, and broom handles; so I did as much work as most girls of my age. It seemed to ease that gnawing and craving within me.

"She's not at all nice looking, but she's a beautiful worker," the matron used to say to me. Sometimes I'd think the least love would turn me pretty, but I was so silent, that I suppose it was hard to care for me.

Alas! who ever dreamed that what befel dear little Bessie could ever, ever happen. Once more the sweet-faced lady came to the Home, but, oh! dear, she was dressed in the deepest black, and little Bessie with her pretty face and winning smiles had gone away from her. I mean the good God had taken her up to heaven with himself, the matron said, but that was a sad day. I overheard the lady telling one of the matrons, with tears and sobs, how long Bessie had been sick, and what an angel of patience she had been. But someway it seemed sad that Bessie must leave that splendid home, for I'd not the least idea what heaven was.

That night I had a dream. I thought I died, and waked up somewhere on the edge of a stream where flowers were growing at my feet. The atmosphere and the place were full of splendors, and the air seemed to penetrate me as with a current of rapture that with each motion made me happier and happier. But the flowers were so beautiful, their colors so vitals that I cried out,

"I never smelt such sweetness."

And some one said, "Tread on the flowers."

Then I thought I put my foot on them, crushing them down, and the whole air became filled with a heavenly perfume.

Just then I saw Bessie, as radiant as a queen. She floated towards me, smiling, her eyes full of love, and cried out to me, "O, Jenny, how beautiful you are."