Miss Crawford was delighted at the child's evident pleasure. "Now, Millie, you are to make a good tea," she said, as she noticed that Millie ate her second slice of bread and butter with considerably less relish than the first. "Thank you," Millie replied, smiling gratefully; "but I haven't been very hungry lately. I think the hot weather has taken away my appetite." "Are you perfectly well, dear child?" Miss Crawford asked anxiously, as she looked at Millie's pale face. "I have bad headaches sometimes," she answered, "and I get tired so soon. But that is nothing; I am quite well, thank you." "Tell me truthfully, Millie, do you always have enough to eat?" Millie blushed and stammered, "I—I—Indeed, I don't think I could eat more if I had it: only uncle gives me so little money now, and Phil works so hard that, you know, he must have plenty of food to keep up his strength. Phil's wages will be raised soon, and then we shall get on better," she added cheerfully. "Your uncle gives you a certain sum weekly, I suppose?" Miss Crawford asked. "He does not give it me regularly—I wish he would," replied Millie. "And it's sometimes more, and sometimes less. I buy the food and the things that we use in the house, and he pays for the rooms—I mean—" She stopped in confusion as she remembered that only that very morning their landlady had told her that they owed nearly a month's rent, and if the money were not soon forthcoming they must leave. Poor Millie! As she thought of it all, the wearied look came back into her face. "Never mind, my child," said Miss Crawford, "we won't talk about disagreeable subjects now. I have a plan in my head to bring back the roses into your cheeks again. But as I may not be able to carry it out after all, I shall not tell you what it is; I don't want to disappoint you." "I can't leave uncle and Phil," said Millie, dreading she knew not what. Miss Crawford smiled and changed the conversation. "How is Phil getting on with his work?" she asked. Phil was an inexhaustible subject to his sister, for she never tired of talking of what he did, and what he knew. She now told Miss Crawford, as a great secret, how much Phil wished to continue the drawing lessons that he had begun at an evening class in Camberwell the previous winter, and how clever he already was with his pencil. "Why, Miss Crawford," said Millie, in a voice of profound admiration, "he actually drew me a lovely little picture of Chormouth Bay, with old John Linton the fisherman coming home with his boat full of mackerel. And all from memory!" "You must show it me, Millie, some day. Now, if you have quite finished your tea, I will have the table cleared." But they sat on in the pleasant garden till all the sunbeams had left it, then Miss Crawford took Millie indoors.