"Yes, there's a 'but,'" said Mrs. Simmons, lowering her full hearty tones, and looking gravely at Janet. "There's a 'but,' Mrs. Humphrey. I don't quite see, for my part, how you're to manage to bring your children to the Feet of the Lord Jesus, if you haven't ever come to Him yourself, and asked Him for healing. There were mothers that brought their little ones to Him to be blessed, and He sent none of them away. But I've marked often, in my mind, how those mothers brought the children themselves. They didn't just send them by somebody else." CHAPTER XV. SORRY AND GLAD. "IT'S gone, Daisy, gone! It's all gone! I'm a poor man now. The gold's gone—gone—gone. I haven't anything left, Daisy." They could do nothing to comfort old Isaac Meads for his loss, so at last they brought Daisy to him. It was now a month since the robbery, and the thief had not been discovered. No one had any hope that he would ever be discovered. Too good a start had been allowed him at the first. Isaac's treasure had utterly vanished. He had been very ill since that evening, so ill that a great part of the month had been passed in unconsciousness or in delirium. But all through his wanderings of mind, he had kept up one monotonous cry of "Gone! gone!" and now that he was creeping back to life, the same plaint went on, only more bitterly. Strange to say, Daisy had taken a sudden turn for the better, at the very time of her father's greatest danger. She could scarcely yet stand quite alone, but she had been able to walk slowly across the room, with the help of Mary's arm, and the doctor spoke hopefully of complete restoration to health. They had hitherto kept her from her father, fearing the possible effects of excitement and distress. But at length Daisy's own pleadings and the condition of the unhappy old man prevailed. Daisy was carried across the passage in a chair, by Mary Davis and Betsy Simmons, and was set down by her father's bedside. Daisy looked very small and thin still, after her long illness, but the bright look in her face was in strange contrast with the utterly dismal and gloomy expression of old Isaac's unshaven and fallen visage. "Oh, poor father, isn't he changed?" she said sorrowfully, her smile clouding over. Then she laid her hand on his and said, "Father, don't you know me?" Yes, he knew her, that was plain; and the first thing he did was to break into his pitiful cry of "Gone, gone!—all gone, Daisy!" But suddenly he paused, as if with a new thought, looked round eagerly, and tried to draw Daisy closer, muttering, "Daisy, don't you tell, now don't you tell. I've something to say to you." The two women kindly moved away, and stood in the window, talking. Daisy bent towards him. "Yes, father," she said. "I durstn't do anything. She'd maybe pay me out," whispered Isaac. "But mind you, Daisy, it's she has gone and taken the money. It's she. See you look out sharp and get it back, else you'll be a workhouse lass, Daisy."