"Alas, my boy!" said the woman, "I fear you must still go hungry, for I have brought you nothing. Mr. Pimble says my week's work must go for rent." 

 Now was Ellen's moment of joy, as she bounded across the broken floor and lifted the napkin from her basket. "No, no, Willie,—no, no, Aunt Dilly, you shall not go hungry to bed to-night. Look what mother has sent you! How thoughtless of me not to have remembered my basket before, when Willie has been suffering from hunger all these long, long hours!" 

 "O, no! I have not thought of being hungry since you came," said the boy. 

 Mrs. Danforth approached the basket and gazed on its contents with tearful eyes. She had not seen the like on her table for many a day, and, dropping on her knees, she breathed a silent prayer to God for his goodness in putting it into the hearts of his children to remember her in her need! Willie brought forth a small bundle of sticks and lighted a fire, while Ellen ran and filled a black, broken-nosed tea-kettle, and hung it on a hook over the blaze. It soon began to sing merrily, and the children laughed and said it had caught some of their happiness. Then Ellen took some tea from the paper her mother had wrapped so nicely, put it in a cracked blue bowl, and Willie fixed a bed of coals for her to set it on. Dilly sat all the while gazing with tearful eyes on the two beaming faces which were constantly turned up to hers, to see if she gave her approval to their movements. At length the repast was prepared, and, after partaking with them, as Mrs. Danforth insisted upon her doing, Ellen set out for home, with Willie by her side. He hesitated some at first, when his mother told him he must accompany her, for his jacket was ragged and his shoes out at the toes. But when Ellen said so reproachfully he was "too bad, too bad, to make her go all the way home alone," he brightened, and said "he would be very glad to go with her if she would not be ashamed of him." So they set out together, each holding a handle of the basket; Ellen bidding Aunt Dilly a cordial good-by, and promising to come soon again and bring her mother. They met Mr. Pimble on their way, who scowled and passed by in silence. 

 Ellen found her mother anxiously waiting her return. She heard with pleasure and interest her little daughter's animated description of her visit; but when she said she had promised to visit Aunt Dilly soon again, and take her mother with her, Mrs. Williams looked sad. 

 "What makes you look so, dear mamma?" said Ellen; "will you not go and see poor Dilly?" 

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