“Are you sure she’s dead? It seems to me I--I know her. Her eyes--they seem to follow one so.” “Yes; and the longer you look at her, the more you love her. I’ve made her my best queen. But oh! Miss Rags, how--how prettily you’re dressed. You’ve all the loveliest colours, no bigger than sixpences--and--and you haven’t a rag.” “I know. I’m respectable now. I’ve turned nurse in earnest. This cap makes me look quite matronly and old. You’ve to have your breakfast, and then I’m going to wash and dress you, and sit with you downstairs. And this afternoon I’ve got a treat in store for you. But I’m not going to mention it till I’ve asked the doctor, in case he says ‘no’--but, if he says ‘no,’ then I’ll find something else just as good.” “But you’re not going to stay with me all day?” “Yes, I am, and all night too. You want some one in the night, and your poor mother’s too tired. I’m going to send her to sleep in my room, and I’m coming to sleep in hers.” For a minute he was silent, then he said: “That lady looks after me at night.” And Marigold said quite softly and wistfully: “She won’t mind me. If she is so very good, she won’t mind me at all.” So she gave him his breakfast, and dressed him, and washed him, and she brushed and combed his hair very gently, and ended by pinning a red rose in his little coat. And Patches, who had felt rather shy at first, soon felt all right--and quite happy and thankful, because dressing had been a very big business lately. And when they got downstairs, what was his surprise to find all the little kitchen beautiful, and lovely flowers on the table and the dresser, and in his arm-chair a lovely patchwork cushion, like Marigold’s dress, as soft as soft, and with the scent of wood violets. She sat down on a chair by the fire opposite to him, laughing at his surprise. “The little green men brought the flowers last night when the moon was shining, and laid them on the doorstep. My aunt and I found them this morning, and brought them in.” And then he looked at them as if he more than half believed her. “I’m not going to be called Miss Rags any longer,” she said, taking up a woollen comforter that she had brought for knitting. “I’m going to be called Mrs Patches. Mr and Mrs Patches we shall be--because you’re to be my sweetheart. I haven’t got a grown-up one.” “But you wouldn’t care to have a cripple for a sweetheart?” he asked, the childish flush again dyeing his cheeks. She looked up at him, a strange kind of power and beauty filling her eyes. “You haven’t got a crippled soul, Patches. You’ll make a really beautiful spirit--and who cares about the body then? There was a wonderful man came on to Lucifram once, and he did nothing but talk to little children, and he said they’d best be lame, without a leg, and go to Heaven, than, having both legs, go nowhere, or even worse than that.” “What did they call him?” “They called him the Son of the Serpent, and some people said he came from Hell.”