She rose, and opening the clothes as gently as she could, she put the clean warm little boy close to Meg's side. Meg instantly felt him, and understood enough, without rousing herself, to say in a soft little tone of endearment-- "Come along, Dickie; you won't mind staying with me?" "No; I'll stay along of mo'ver-Meg," said Dickie; and as he said it, he put his thin little arms about her neck and kissed her. Then without another word they both sank into dreamless slumber. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XIII. DICKIE'S ATTIC. When Mrs. Seymour had placed the tired little Cherry in her own nice bed, and had made Miss Hobson understand in a few words who it was who would be found in the morning sharing her room, she returned to the next floor and looked round. In the bedroom Meg and Dickie slept the sleep of the utterly weary, and leaving them for a moment she went to look after her son Jem. He too slept soundly, though he had not undressed, but lay covered by a blanket on the sofa. The clock on the mantel-piece pointed to two, the fire was out, and the room desolate. Making her own determination, but leaving it for the present for fear of disturbing Jem, she went back to Meg. She stood by the side of the little cot and gazed long and earnestly at the face of her grandchild. Her grandchild! How she had longed to welcome it! how she had counted on hearing its little feet patter about in her room! how she had yearned to see her Jem with his child on his knee! Instead of that, a dead baby lay in the cradle; and in Meg's embrace slept a little stranger child, taken, as it were, out of the very gutter; and in Jem's arms had stood a little cripple, who might be a care to him all his days. Mrs. Seymour could hardly believe that all this had happened in one day--that it could be only yesterday when she had felt that everything was going so well with the pair whom she loved better than herself. She sat down in Meg's low chair, and looked into the fire with a troubled face. She argued to herself that Jem and Meg little knew the burden they were taking up; and even if they dimly understood it, they were not able to look into the future, and could not know what the years might bring. While these thoughts were passing through her mind, she seemed to see something written across the fire as she gazed into it. The words were familiar, and yet she could not make them out in their order. She shut her eyes, but still they came again, haunting her with a rebuke as thorough as it was gentle. Was it the Holy Spirit, who teaches all those who are wanting to do their Father's will? "I was an hungered, and ye gave Me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave Me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took Me in. Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me."