Upon going up to his stall, Seth saw Betsy Newbiggin and a number of other children standing in the road. "Please, Mr. Dumbrick," said Betsy, "I mustn't come any nearer to you 'cause mother said I'd ketch the fever and if I did she'd wollop me. We wants to know how the Duchess is." "Very ill, Betsy," said Seth gravely. "She ain't a-goin' to die, Mr. Dumbrick?" asked Betsy apprehensively. "I hope not," said Seth softly, with a slight shiver. "You don't want her to die do you?" "How can you go and arks us such a thing?" exclaimed Betsy indignantly. "We want her to git up and come and play. We're too fond on her to wish anything like that. Ain't we?" All the little heads--most of them uncombed, and nearly all with dirty faces--were nodded solemnly and emphatically in response. "And please," said Betsy, "here's a orange as Jimmy Platt arksed me to give the Duchess. Jimmy's gone out with his father and a barrer; and here's a gingerbread-man as this little gal bought with a ha'-penny as she sold a bit of lead for, and here's a bottle of liquorish-water as'll cure the Duchess if you'll give her two teaspoonfuls every quarter of an hour. It's sure to. I made it myself; and it's as strong as strong can be." Betsy laid these love-offerings in a row on the kerbstone, and Seth contemplated them and her with grim tenderness. "And here," continued Betsy, producing from under her frock a birdcage with a canary in it, "here's poor Bob's bird, and it's got to be give to the Duchess, and she's got to take great care on it. Them's Bob's words. She's got to take great care on it." Betsy would have proceeded, for she was glib of tongue, but Seth incautiously moved a step towards her, and she and her companions scampered off in great haste, with the fear of fever in their hearts. "Well, well," muttered Seth, who at any other time would have derived much amusement from the interview and its termination, "human nature's not such a bad thing after all." Bob's bird was hung by the Duchess's bed, but when during the day the child, in a lucid interval, said tearfully as she looked at it, "Bob's dead, then; I must think of him," Seth, who did not know of the lad's death, regarded the bird as a bird of ill omen. But it puzzled him to discover how, by merely gazing at the bird, the Duchess knew of Bob's death. "She saw her mother last night," he muttered; "are there really spirits? and can she see things?"