"She's took ill again. She fainted dead away again this afternoon, all of a sudden, and Dr. Lyons says she must have strengthening things." Utterly forgetting her declaration that if her husband killed her she would not give him the money, Mrs. Chester dragged the fifteen pence out of her pocket, and flinging it upon the table, cried passionately: "Take it! and drink the child's life away!" "Not quite so bad as that, old woman," he said, in a shame-faced tone, "I've enough to reproach myself with one. Is Sal asleep?" His question was answered by the pattering of two little bare feet, and Sally herself appeared from an inner room, which, with the parlour in which this scene was taking place, formed the domestic establishment of the Chester family. "No, father, I'm not asleep," cried Sally, as she ran. Sally was only five years of age, and was such a mite of a child that she might have been no age at all. Waking suddenly, she had scrambled out of bed on hearing her father's voice. "You parcel of bones!" exclaimed Mr. Chester, with rough tenderness, lifting the child in his arms. "What have you been up to again?" "I fainted dead away, father!" replied Sally, gleefully; "dead away!" The proud tone in which, in her thin shrill voice, she made this evidently familiar statement respecting herself was very remarkable. "Why, Sally, you're always at it!" "Yes, father," said Sally, with a triumphant laugh. "But," said Mr. Chester, "if you go on fainting away like this, Sally, one of these days you'll faint so dead away that you'll never come to again." This conveyed no terrors to Sally's mind, for she clapped her bony hands in delight at the idea. She stopped in the midst of her clapping, and struggling out of her father's arms, ran to the sleeping child, and gazed earnestly at the pretty face. Following Sally's movements, Mr. and Mrs. Chester saw for the first time that the man who had intruded upon them was not alone. The two children presented a notable contrast. Sally had not a spare ounce of flesh upon her body; the newcomer was plump, and her limbs were well proportioned. Sally was dark and sallow; the newcomer was fair, and despite her weariness, there were roses in her cheeks. Sally's hair was black, and hung straight in lank disorder about her forehead; the newcomer's hair was flaxen, and hung about her forehead in naturally-graceful curls. She was like one of Raphael's angels, fresh from heaven; Sally was like an elf from dark woods.