"Ah! he's thin enough now, Miss," observed Nurse, "even that sour stiff-backed lady would have a hard matter to call him fat. He's never been the same since she looked at him with those sharp ferret eyes of hers;" and then she moved away and went and seated herself by the fire, recounting the whole history to Anne, of not only her dislike for Miss Barker, but the reason of Bertie's apparent partiality for Frances; while the latter sat and listened to Bertie's talk, he wounding and opening her heart afresh at every word he uttered. "Naughty Missy not to come to Bertie!" he said; and Frances could not tell him why she had stayed away; she could only remain silent and so allow him to conclude she had been unkind. She took up some of the books Amy had left. "Here are pretty pictures," she said, "shall Missy tell you some of the nice stories?" "No, you mustn't. Mamma tells me them; I like her to, she tells them so pretty." "Is there nothing Missy can do for you? Shall she sing you a song?" "Mamma sings 'Gentle Jesus;' you don't know one so pretty do you?" "No, Bertie, I am sure I don't." Presently his little face brightened. "I should like you to get me kitty," he said. "Yes. Who is kitty though?" "That's what Master Bertie cried for the very day he was taken ill. It's the kitten he saw in the village, Miss," said Hannah. "Bertie shall have kitty," said Frances, decidedly. "Missy will fetch her." "Yes, she's big now, her mother won't cry," he said, as if not quite satisfied that she would not. It had come on to rain, since the morning but what cared Frances for that; she scarcely stayed to snatch her hat and cloak before she was hurrying through it. What cared she for the rain or anything else? Her whole soul was with Bertie--the child who through her means was dying, and yet had clasped her neck so lovingly as she bent over him dismayed and appalled at the ravages illness had made in his sweet face. There was only Matthew in the little parlour as she entered the cottage. "You'd better not come in, Miss," he said "no offence, Miss, but my sister-in-law's been ill with the fever these days past." "It can make no difference now," she said, bitterly, "that little boy I brought here only ten days ago is--is dying of the fever he caught here." "Lord save us! Miss, dying?" said Matthew regretfully. "He has just asked for the kitten he saw here. Will you let him have it? It may be," she said despairingly, seeing he hesitated, "only--only for a day, or for--a few hours, you would never have the heart to refuse a child's last wish." In days gone by she would have abused him for the hand he had had in causing poor Bertie's illness, and her misery. But it was different now.