many stairs, and it was very seldom she could get out at all; for though she was very light and small, her mother was too tired to carry her down after her day's work. Beatrice Annie was suffering from a disease very common with poor children, called rickets. It means that the bones are not strong--they are like chalk, and will break very easily; even a fall off a chair might do it--and it is sometimes caused by the children not having had enough milk when they were babies. When her mother left her alone, Beatrice Annie used to look round the room and sigh. It was a very dreary room. When you are ill, everyone brings you nice things--flowers and jellies and pictures--to pass the time. This little girl had only one picture, a bright-coloured almanack, with a likeness of the King dressed in the scarlet uniform of a soldier, and she had looked at this so often she was tired of it. She was so lonely that she would have been glad if even a little mouse had come to play with her; but the mice did not come to that room; there were not enough crumbs to please Mr. Mouse. Beatrice Annie could not read; she had never been to school, for she was not strong enough. So she sat for a long time on the wooden floor and wondered what she should do. She had one dirty wooden doll, dressed in rags, and for a little time she washed its face, wiping it with a bit of rag dipped in the corner of the little pan she was going to boil her egg in; but she soon got tired of that. Then she tried to climb on the chair to look out of the window, but when she managed it, after trying several times, she could not stay long, it made her legs ache so; and the street was very far down, she could not see anything interesting. So the weary day went on. Long before one o'clock she had boiled her egg, and she ate it with great enjoyment; but that did not take very long, and then there were hours and hours to wait before at last the old stairs creaked and her mother put the key in the lock and came in with a tired face. She was a good woman this, though so poor and wretched, and she could not help her little girl's being left alone, and she always tried to bring home something for her to cheer her up. 'Look, Beatrice Annie!' she cried, as she opened the door. 'What hever do ye think I've brought for yer?' And she held up a bunch of red radishes for a treat.