Thus little Cara stole in and established herself noiselessly in the corner by her mother’s bedside, hidden by the curtains. Many and strange had been the thoughts in the child’s head through these winter months, since her parents came home. She had lived a very quiet life for a child since ever she could remember, though it was a happy life enough; and the curious baby rigidity of the little code of morals which she had formed for herself had been unbroken up to that time. Cara had felt that, whosoever did wrong ought to be hanged, beheaded, burnt, or whatsoever penalty was practicable, at once, without benefit of clergy. A lie being the worst possible offence that ever came within her ken, had been as murder in the swift and sudden vengeance of her thoughts. The offence had been considered capital, beyond the reach of pardon or extenuation. It is impossible to tell what horrible overthrow of all her canons ensued when her father and aunt not only sanctioned, but enforced, lying upon her, and boldly avowed their practice of it themselves as a duty. Cara had lost herself for a long time after that. She had wandered through that bottomless darkness for months, and now had only just come to a glimmering of daylight again by aid of the individual argument, that though truth was necessary for the world in general, modifications were permitted in cases where people were ill--in the case of mamma being ill, which was the immediate thing before her. It was the one evil she was individually cognisant of in the world; but the thing was to accept it, not struggle against it, as guilt which was justified by necessity. Cara felt that here was one thing upon which more light would come as one grew older--a prospect which generally this little idealist treated with the contempt it deserves. Mamma would be better then, she thought, and the world get back into its due balance and equilibrium without any one being the worse. Probably now that time was soon approaching, now that the doctors had come and found what was the matter, and probably very soon, Cara hoped, the worst of all her difficulties would be removed; and upon this doubtful subject she would be able to get the opinion of the individual on whose behalf the others were defying Heaven with so much horrible daring, of mamma herself, for whom the sun and moon were being made to stand still, and all the world was put out of joint for the time. This hope was in her thoughts as she took her seat in nurse’s big, softly-cushioned chair, which never creaked nor made any noise, and sat there as still as a mouse, sometimes not unlike a mouse, peeping round the corner of the curtain at her charge, who lay half buried among the pillows which her restlessness had thrown into disorder, with little starts and twitches of movement, and now and then a broken moan. Worn as she was, there was still beauty in the face--white and sharpened with pain, with red hectic spots upon it,