CHAPTER VII.
“AND WHEN THE FIGHT IS FIERCE.”
After a week or two spent in making Fred feel at home and settled in his new quarters, Bess suggested her next plan. It was after church one Sunday night, and Bess was sitting with her hat still on, by the parlor fire, while Fred and the Dominie were in a promiscuous pile on the rug, where Fred had been eagerly listening for the familiar step on the walk outside. Since he had been at the Carters’, he had lost much of his fretful look, and seemed better and brighter in every way. Mrs. Carter petted him, and talked with him, giving him many little hints of the way in which he might even yet be a useful, happy man; while her husband laughed and joked with him, and occasionally teased him a little. But, after all, it was neither gentle Mrs. Carter, nor her genial husband, to whom the boy turned for
