"It seems fur to warm a chap," he said again, as he crept under the wretched blanket which Mrs. Skimmidge designated and charged for as a bed. From that day forward Wikkey was possessed by one idea--that of watching for the approach of the "big chap," following his steps along the crossing, and then, if possible, getting a word or look on which to live until the next blissful moment should arrive. Nor was he often disappointed, for Lawrence, having recently obtained employment in a certain government office, and Wikkey's crossing happening to lie on the shortest way from his own abode to the scene of his daily labor, he seldom varied his route, and truth to say, the strange little figure, always watching so eagerly for his appearance, began to have an attraction for him. He wondered what the boy meant by it, and at first, naturally connected the idea of coppers with Wikkey's devotion; but he soon came to see that it went deeper than that, for with a curious instinct of delicacy which the lad would probably have been quite unable to explain to himself, he would sometimes hang back as Lawrence reached the pavement, and nod his funny "Good night, guvner," from midway on his crossing, in a way that precluded any suspicion of mercenary motives. But at last there came a season of desolation very nearly verging on despair. Day after day for a week--ten days--a fortnight--did Wikkey watch in vain for his hero. Poor lad, he could not know that Lawrence had been suddenly summoned to the country, and had arranged for a substitute to take his duty for a fortnight; and the terrible thought haunted the child that the big chap had changed his route, perhaps even out of dislike to his--Wikkey's--attentions, and he should never see his face again. The idea was horrible--so horrible that as it became strengthened by each day's disappointment, and at last took possession of the boy's whole soul, it sapped away what little vitality there was in the small, fragile frame, leaving it an easy prey to the biting wind which caught his breath away as he crept shivering around the street corners, and to the frost which clutched the thinly-clad body. The cough, which Wikkey scarcely remembered ever being without, increased to such violence as to shake him from head to foot, and his breathing became hard and painful; yet still he clung to his crossing with the pertinacity of despair, scanning each figure that approached with eager, hungry eyes. He had laid out part of Lawrence's half-crown on a woolen muffler, which at first had seemed a marvel of comfort, but the keen north-easter soon found its way even through that, and the hot pies on which he expended the rest did not warm him for very long; there came a day, too, when he could only hold his pie between his frozen hands, dreamily wondering why he felt no wish to eat it, why the sight of it made him feel so sick. A dreadful day that was. Mechanically, Wikkey