Earlier in the evening Netta had seemed brighter, and had eaten heartily of some fruit Richard had fetched for her from Covent Garden. She was very weak, but she had begged to be dressed, and was lying upon the little couch; while Mrs Jenkles, after helping, had gone down into the kitchen, where Sam was sitting at his tea, to look at him very fixedly, and then her face began to twitch and work. "She aint worse, is she?" said Sam, in an awe-stricken whisper. "Oh, Sam, Sam," sobbed the poor woman, bursting into tears; "and her so young, too. It's very, very sad." "I shan't go out to-night, then," said Sam, a little more hoarsely than usual. "Ratty may have a holiday. It's a hill wind as blows nobody any good. If I do go to have a smoke, old woman, I shall be standing across the road in Mother Fiddison's doorway." "Oh, Sam, it's very, very sad," sobbed Mrs Jenkles again; "and her so young. If it had been her mother or me!" "Stow that, old gal," said Sam, with a choke. "If there's e'er a woman as can't be spared outer this here wicked world of pore cabmen and hard fares, it's you. What'd become o' me?" "Oh, Sam," sobbed Mrs Jenkles from inside her apron. "I should go to the bad in a week, old gal. I should never pass a corner public without dropping in; and at the end of six months there'd be a procession o' cabs follering a subscription funeral, raised by threepenny bits and tanners; and every cabby on the ranks'd have a little crape bow on his whip in memory o' Sam Jenkles, as drunk hisself to death." "Don't, pray, Sam," sobbed his wife. "It's true enough, missus; and I b'lieve the chaps 'd be sorry; while as for old Ratty, I b'lieve he'd cry." "Sam!" sobbed his wife. "I wonder," said Sam, dolefully, "whether they'd let the old 'oss follow like they do the soldiers, with my whip and boots hanging one side, and my old 'at on the other. Sh! here's Mrs Lane." "Mrs Jenkles," cried their lodger, hurriedly, "go and ask Mr Lloyd to come over. She wants to see him." "Is she worse, ma'am?" The mother's lip quivered for reply; but after stifling a sob, she gasped-- "And ask Mr Reston, the doctor, to step in." "I'll run for him, mum, while the missus fetches Mr Lloyd," said Sam, hurrying away. A few minutes after, Richard ascended to Netta's room, to be received with a smile of pleasure, and he took the seat to which the poor girl pointed. "Are you better to-night, my dear?" he said, kissing her gravely. "Yes, much," she said, retaining his hand and keeping it pinioned between hers. "I want you to sit and talk to me to-night--mamma will like to hear--about our rides, and the woods and flowers. Ah, how little I've seen of the country and the flowers!" She started as she caught a sigh from Mrs Lane. "You could not help it, dear," she said, hastily. "Don't think me ungrateful. Come and kiss me, and tell me you don't."