a very tight hold of my heart, and that the sooner I wrenched myself from its grasp the better? On the other hand, there was no definite reason why I should not go, there was only this vague feeling of uneasiness about Essie that tormented me and kept me back, and this unsettled question about the profitableness of going into the world. How should I decide? My affection for my little cousin tugged strongly at my heart. Pride and inclination pulled as fiercely the other way. A feeling that I did not give a name to, but which was stronger than either, prompted me to follow my own desires, and leave Essie to her fate. What business was it of mine? If other people neglected their children, and left their duties for their pleasures, why need I concern myself? Why need I take upon myself their discarded responsibilities? At last I stole on tiptoe to the bed again, to see if she still slept. Not much sleep in those frightened eyes. "Why! Essie, my pet, when did you wake up?" With a sigh of relief, and a little relaxing of the look of terror, she raised herself up, and saying hurriedly, "how still it is! I thought you had gone away," she twined both small hands tightly round my wrist. "Oh, no!" I said, sitting down by her, "it isn't time yet. I shall not go for an hour or two." "Don't go at all, please don't go," whispered the child, panting for breath, and clinging to me in an agony. "If you knew how awful it was to be alone, and how still the room was, you wouldn't leave me, indeed you wouldn't. Besides," she went on hurriedly, "how can you tell what'll become of me while you're gone? Nobody else loves me, nobody else is good to me. I am troublesome and wicked--only God and you care anything about me." It was useless to soothe or reason with her now. I knew little of illness, but I saw in a moment that the wild delirium of fever was burning in my little companion's veins, and raging in her brain. I was frightened at the strength of the little hands that fastened themselves on mine, and the hurry and wildness of the broken sentences she uttered. All I could do, was to promise that I would not go, and assure her that there were no "ugly shadows" on the wall--that nobody was coming to take her away--that it was all because her head ached so. But when Félicie appeared, it was a less easy matter to control her. She screamed, and hid her face, and cried to me to send her away--she hated her--she gave her horrid stuff--she made her angry, and a thousand other vehement exclamations in alternate French and English. The nurse, with a subdued glare of anger in her eyes, would fain have soothed her, for her voice, shrill with the strength of fever, could easily have been heard downstairs, and Mrs. Churchill had come home and was now in her dressing-room. My alarm had overcome my pride by this time, and loosing my hands from the child's grasp, I gave her into Félicie's charge, and ran downstairs.