and I know that little girl, the black head over there; it is my great-great-grandmother."
"The silhouette, you mean? Yes, that is she, and she is the same one who did that sampler you see hanging between the windows. She was not so old as you when she did it."
Edna crossed the room and knelt on a chair in front of the sampler. It was dim with age, but she could discern a border of pink flowers with green leaves and letters worked in blue silk. She followed the letters with the tip of her finger, tracing them on the glass and at last spelling out the name of "Annabel Lisle, wrought in her seventh year."
"Poor little Annabel, how hard she must have worked," sighed Edna. "I am glad I don't have to do samplers."
"You might be worse employed," said her grandmother, smiling.
"Did you ever do a sampler?" asked Edna.
"Not a sampler like this one, but I learned to work in cross stitch. Do you remember the little stool in the living-room by the fireplace?"
"The one with roses on it that I was sitting on?"
"Yes; that I did when I was about your age, and the sofa pillow with the two doves on it I did when I was about Celia's age. I was very proud of it, I remember."
"May I go look at them?"
"Assuredly."
So Edna went into the next room and carefully examined the two pieces of work which now had a new importance in her eyes. A little girl about her age had done them long ago. She discovered, too, a queer-looking picture behind the door. It was of a lady leaning against an urn, a weeping-willow tree near by. The lady held a handkerchief in her hand and looked very sorrowful. Edna wondered why she seemed so sad. There were some words written below but they were too faint for her to decipher, and she determined to ask her grandmother about this picture which she had never noticed before. While she was still looking at it, Reliance came to the door to say, "I can go now; I've finished what I had to do." Edna turned with alacrity and the two went out together.
CHAPTER II
RELIANCE
"How long have you lived here?" Edna asked her companion when they were outside.
"About six months," was the reply.
"Are you 'dopted?" came the next question.
"No, I'm bound."
Edna looked puzzled. "I don't know what that is. I know a girl that was a Friendless and she was 'dopted so now she has a mother and a beautiful home. Her name used to be Maggie Horn, but now it is Margaret McDonald. Is your name Reliance Willis?"
"No, it is Reliance Fairman, and it wasn't ever anything else. I was friendless, too, till Mrs. Willis took me."
"Oh, and did you live in a house with a lot of other Friendlesses?"
"No, I wasn't in an orphan asylum, if that's what you mean, but I reckon I would have had to go there or else to the almshouse."
"Oh!" This seemed even more dreadful to Edna and she looked at her companion with new interest, at the same time slipping her hand into the other's to show her sympathy. "Tell me about it," she said.
"Why, you see, my parents died. We lived about three miles from here, and your grandmother used to know my grandmother; they went to the same school, so when us children were left without any home or any money your grandmother said she would take me and keep me till I was of age, so they bound me."
"How many children were there?"
"Three boys and me. Two of the boys are with Mr. Lukens and the other is in a home; he is a little chap, only six. If he'd been bigger maybe your grandfather would have had him here, and perhaps he will come when he is big enough to be of any use."
"I think that would be very nice and I shall ask grandfather to be sure to take him. Do you like it here?"
"Oh, yes, I like it. Amanda is awful pernickity sometimes, but I just love your grandmother and it is a heap sight better than being hungry and cold."
"Would you have to stay supposing you didn't like it?" Edna was determined to get all the particulars.
"I suppose so; I'd have to stay till I was eighteen; I'm bound to do that."
Edna reflected. "I suppose that is what it means by being bound; you are just bound to stay. I wonder if anyone else was ever named Reliance," she went on, being much interested to hear something about so peculiar a name.
"My grandmother was, her that your grandmother knew."
"Oh, was she? Then you are named after your grandmother just as my sister Celia is named Cecelia after hers. Yours is a funny name, isn't it? I don't mean funny exactly, for I think it is quite pretty, but I never knew of anyone named that."
"I don't mind it when I get it all, but when my brothers called me Li I didn't like it. Your grandmother gives me the whole name, and I am glad she does; but she said they generally used to call my grandmother Lyley when she was a little girl."
"I think that is rather pretty, too, don't you?"
"Yes, but I like the whole name better."
"Then I will always call you by the whole name," Edna assured her. "Can you tell stories, Reliance?"
"Do you mean fibs or reading stories like – let's see – Cinderella and Jack and the Beanstalk?"
"Oh, I mean the Cinderella kind; I'd hate to think you told fibs."
"I can tell 'em, but I guess I don't care to. I know two or three of the other kind and Bible stories, some of them: Eli and Samuel, and David and Goliath, and all those."
"Do you go to school?"
"Half the year, but I guess I won't be going very much longer. I'll soon be going on fourteen; I'll stop when I'm fifteen."
"Oh, shall you? Then what will you do?"
"I'll learn to housekeep and cook, and to sew and all that. Mrs. Willis says it is more important for me to be educated in the useful things, that I'll get along better if I am, and I guess she is right. My mother couldn't cook worth a cent and she just hated it, so we didn't get very good vittles."
"Was it your mother's mother after whom you were named?"
"No, my father's mother. The Fairmans lived around here, but there ain't many of them left now. My father was an only child, and he married my mother out of town; she hadn't ever been used to the country. She used to work in a store and that's why she couldn't cook, you see."
Edna pondered over this information, wondering if everyone who worked in a store must necessarily turn out a poor cook.
"You ought just to see what's getting ready for Thanksgiving," said Reliance, changing the subject, "I never seen such a pile of stuff. It fair makes my mouth water to think of it; pies and cakes and doughnuts and jellies and I don't know what all. I guess there's as many as twenty or thirty coming, ain't there?"
"Let me see; I shall have to count. There will be Aunt Alice and her two boys, Ben and Willis, and Uncle Bert Willis with his five children and Aunt Lucia; that makes ten, and then there will be all of us, papa and mamma and us four children;
