The long hours of night wore away, and the morning broke, bright, fresh, and frosty. Then the long corridor and passages echoed with the sound of hasty footsteps hurrying through them, while the quick, sudden opening and shutting of doors betokened an unusual stir in the Hall. The children were preparing for their journey. Half an hour later all was silent and still, more so than it had been for days. The children were gone. Again we enter the sick room. Bertie is no better, but, if anything, worse; his little face more flushed and heated, his burning hands wandering restlessly about, to and fro, as he tosses and turns upon his little cot, his anxious eyes no longer looking mournfully, and as it were imploringly in his mother's face for help from his pain, for Bertie is delirious, and does not even recognise her; his thoughts ramble, and he talks incoherently and strangely. Mrs. Hopkins often came to see him, bringing, as was her wont, in cases of illness, broths and cooling drinks she had prepared with her own hand; but Bertie was too ill to heed them, and Amy could but look her thanks--words she had none. It was on returning from one of these visits, with cup and saucer in hand, that she met Frances Strickland. "Have you been to see Master Bertie?" she asked. "Yes, Miss," replied Mrs. Hopkins, with a sigh. "And how is he? Do you think he is any better this morning?" "No, Miss, I don't. It's my belief he couldn't well be worse; but the doctor'll know better than me. I suppose he'll be here presently." "What makes you think him so ill?" "I've been the mother of four, Miss, and lost them all, and none of them looked a bit worse than Master Bertie, poor, innocent lamb." "But you had not two doctors," returned Frances. "No, nor half the nurses to wait on mine; but I'd the same loving, craving mother's heart and the same God to look up to and hope in," and the housekeeper passed on, as the rebuke fell from her lips. "Oh! I wish I could hope, I wish I could pray," cried Frances, as she went once more into the solitude of her own room; not only did she grieve for Bertie, but the terror lest through her means he should die had at last brought repentance to her unfeeling heart; she had been so wicked, so relentlessly cruel to his mother, that perhaps the boy's death was to be her punishment; and she could think of, scarcely look forward to, anything else.