mother's voice calling me, and she took me into the great cool room
where father lay.

Dot was curled up in mother's great arm-chair, with his favorite
book of natural history; he slipped a hot little hand in mine as I
passed him.

Dot was our name for him because he was so little, but he had been
called Frank, after our father; he was eight years old, but he hardly
looked bigger than a child of six. His poor back was crooked, and he
was lame from hip-disease; sometimes for weeks together the cruel
abscesses wasted his strength, at other times he was tolerably free
from pain; even at his worst times Dot was a cheery invalid, for he
was a bright, patient little fellow. He had a beautiful little face,
too, though perhaps the eyes were a trifle too large for the thin
features; but Dot was my pet, and I could see no fault in him;
nothing angered me more than when people pitied him or lamented over
his infirmity. When I first came home the sound of his crutch on the
floor was the sweetest music in my ear. But I had no eyes even for
Dot after my first look at father. Oh, how changed, how terribly
changed he was! The great wave of brown hair over his forehead was
gray, his features were pinched and haggard, and when he spoke to me
his voice was different, and he seemed hardly able to articulate.

"Poor children--poor children!" he groaned; and as I kissed his
cheek he said, "Be a good girl, Esther, and try to be a comfort to
your mother."

"When I am a man I shall try and be a comfort too," cried Dot, in
his sharp chirpy voice; it quite startled father.