“Who are you? Do you come from the moon? I think you do.” Then, stopping abruptly, she broke into a verse of a nursery-song, which she chaunted with a low, listless tone, as if she were not conscious of the sense. As she thus sang, Morton, looking at her, felt a strange and painful doubt seize him. The child’s eyes, though soft, were so vacant in their gaze. “And why do I come from the moon?” said he. “Because you look sad and cross. I don’t like you--I don’t like the moon; it gives me a pain here!” and she put her hand to her temples. “Have you got anything for Fanny--poor, poor Fanny?” and, dwelling on the epithet, she shook her head mournfully. “You are rich, Fanny, with all those toys.” “Am I? Everybody calls me poor Fanny--everybody but papa;” and she ran again to Gawtrey, and laid her head on his shoulder. “She calls me papa!” said Gawtrey, kissing her; “you hear it? Bless her!” “And you never kiss any one but Fanny--you have no other little girl?” said the child, earnestly, and with a look less vacant than that which had saddened Morton. “No other--no--nothing under heaven, and perhaps above it, but you!” and he clasped her in his arms. “But,” he added, after a pause--“but mind me, Fanny, you must like this gentleman. He will be always good to you: and he had a little brother whom he was as fond of as I am of you.” “No, I won’t like him--I won’t like anybody but you and my sister!” “Sister!--who is your sister?” The child’s face relapsed into an expression almost of idiotcy. “I don’t know--I never saw her. I hear her sometimes, but I don’t understand what she says.--Hush! come here!” and she stole to the window on tiptoe. Gawtrey followed and looked out. “Do you hear her, now?” said Fanny. “What does she say?” As the girl spoke, some bird among the evergreens uttered a shrill, plaintive cry, rather than song--a sound which the thrush occasionally makes in the winter, and which seems to express something of fear, and pain, and impatience. “What does she say?--can you tell me?” asked the child. “Pooh! that is a bird; why do you call it your sister?” “I don’t know!--because it is--because it--because--I don’t know--is it not in pain?--do something for it, papa!” Gawtrey glanced at Morton, whose face betokened his deep pity, and creeping up to him, whispered,-- “Do you think she is really touched here? No, no,--she will outgrow it--I am sure she will!” Morton sighed. Fanny by this time had again seated herself in the middle of the floor, and arranged her toys, but without seeming to take pleasure in them. At last Gawtrey was obliged to depart. The lay sister, who had charge of Fanny, was summoned into the parlour; and then the child’s manner entirely changed; her face grew purple--she sobbed with as much anger as grief. “She would not leave papa--she would not go--that she would not!”