more than a child.'

'As she is,' said Ethel, 'but as she won't be any longer. And the
two little ones?'

'It breaks one's heart to see them, just able to sit by their nursery
fire, murmuring in that weary, resigned, sick child's voice, 'I wish
nurse would come.' 'I wish sister would come.' 'I wish mamma would
come.' I went up to them the last thing, and told them how it was,
and let them cry themselves to sleep. That was the worst business of
all. Ethel, are they too big for Mary to dress some dolls for them?'

'I will try to find out their tastes the first thing to-morrow,' said
Ethel; 'at any rate we can help them, if not poor Averil.'

Ethel, however, was detained at home to await Dr. Spencer's visit,
and Mary, whose dreams had all night been haunted by the thought of
the two little nursery prisoners, entreated to go with her father,
and see what could be done for them.

Off they set together, Mary with a basket in her hand, which was
replenished at the toy-shop in Minster Street with two china-faced
dolls, and, a little farther on, parted with a couple of rolls,
interspersed with strata of cold beef and butter, to a household of
convalescents in the stage for kitchen physic.

Passing the school, still taking its enforced holiday, the father and
daughter traversed the bridge and entered the growing suburb known as
Bankside, where wretched cottages belonging to needy, grasping
proprietors, formed an uncomfortable contrast to the villa residences