Too ill to take any notice of Grace dressed in her new bonnet, Sophia Jane must indeed be unlike herself. Perhaps her head ached very badly like Freddie's. "How I wish they would let me help with the bandages!" sighed Susan to herself. Day after day followed, till Sophia Jane had been ill a week. No improvement. The fever did not leave her; each morning she seemed a little weaker and less able to bear it, and each morning Aunt Hannah's face looked graver and more conscious, so that Susan did not like to ask the question always in her mind, "May I see Sophia Jane to-day?" One afternoon, however, she was in her usual place on the stairs reading when the door behind her opened, and some one said softly, "Susan." She looked up; Aunt Hannah stood there beckoning her to come in. "You may see Sophia Jane for five minutes," she said; "she wants to ask you something. You must promise her to do whatever she wishes, and speak very gently." Susan followed on tip-toe through the first room, where there were medicine bottles and a strong smell of vinegar, into the second. She looked timidly towards the bed and felt as though she should see a stranger there and not Sophia Jane. This was almost the case, for the little figure sitting propped up with pillows had nothing familiar about it. Her hair had been cut quite short, and stood up in spikes all over her head, there was a burning pink flush on each cheek, and her eyes glistened like two steel beads. "My darling," said Aunt Hannah soothingly, as she led Susan forward, "here is Susan, tell her what you wish, and then you must lie down quietly and go to sleep, as you promised." What a different voice Aunt Hannah had now that Sophia Jane was ill! And she had called her "darling!" Such a thing had never happened before! But Sophia Jane took no notice of the caressing tone: she waved her hand fretfully as Aunt Hannah bent over her, and the gesture said more plainly than words, "Go away, and let me speak to her." Everything seemed strangely altered, for, to Susan's surprise, Aunt Hannah meekly obeyed, went into the next room, and shut the door. At this Sophia Jane put out a hand about the size of a canary's claw, and caught hold of Susan's sleeve: "It's behind the big box in the attic!" she said, in a small hoarse voice. Of course it was the half-crown, but Susan was so confused by the eager gaze fixed on her, that she only said: "What is?" "A parcel. Done up in newspaper. For Madmozal. You must give it her." Susan nodded. "Soon," said Sophia Jane, with a feeble pull at the sleeve. "To-morrow, if I can," answered Susan earnestly. "What shall I say to her?" Sophia Jane's fingers let go their hold, her head drooped on the pillows, and she closed her eyes; but she murmured something as she did so, and, bending down to listen, Susan heard: "A collar for his cat." "Come away, my dear," said Aunt Hannah's voice. "She is too tired to talk any more. Perhaps she will sleep now."