Little Folks (July 1884)

om it only by a little square bit of landing, and, like hers, was a tiny apartment under the roof, with a ceiling of the bare rafters which supported the tiles. In each was a small wooden bedstead, a deal stand, with basin and jug of coarse white earthenware, and a small deal box, which served both to keep clothes in and as a chair.

Everything was scrupulously clean, even to the dimity vallance that hung across the low window. In autumn and winter the bleak wind whistled through the chimneys and rattled the casements in a way that would have prevented a town-bred child from sleeping, and up in those bare rooms there was cold enough to pinch you black and blue; but Elsie and Duncan had never thought much of that, for they had been accustomed to it from babyhood, and only threw on their thick homespun garments in greater haste.

Just now the weather was unusually hot, and the little lofts had gone to the other extreme, and were more like ovens than anything else. Duncan had scarcely taken off his j