er for her or the children. Mr Philip had commenced an irregular
sort of attendance at the bank, but he had a good deal of time still at
his disposal, and kindly bestowed a share of it on his little sisters.
"Philip could be very nice when he liked," they agreed, and he very
often "liked" about this time.

He went sometimes to the bridge house, too, and was as popular as ever
among the little people there. They were not getting well very fast.
Charlotte and Sarah were up and out in the garden, and able to amuse
themselves with their dolls and their games, when Violet, going home one
day, found Jessie and Ned languid and fretful, and poor wee Polly lying
limp and white in her cot. Her mother looked worn and anxious, David
came home with a headache, and Jem was the only one among them whose
health and spirits were in a satisfactory condition.

"I cannot stay to-night, mamma, because they expect me back," said
Violet. "But I shall come home to-morrow. They don't need me half as
much as you do, and I must come. You are sick yourself, mamma."

"No, I am tired, that is all; and the weather is so warm. Don't come
till the children are well. It is your proper place there, and even you
cannot help us here while the weather is so warm."

It was very hot and close, and Violet fancied that from the low fields
beyond, where there was water still standing, a sickly odour came.

"No wonder they don't get strong," said she.

Mr Oswald had spoken in the morning about sending his little girls to
the country, or to the seaside. The doctor had suggested this as the
best thing that could be done for them. Violet thought of their large
house, with its many rooms, and of the garden in which it stood, and
looked at her little sisters and brothers growing so pale and languid in
the close air, which there was no hope of changing, with a feeling very
like envy or discontent rising in her heart.

"Mamma," said she, "it is a dreadful thing to be poor;" and then she
told of the plan for sending the Oswalds away for change of air, and how
they were already well and strong in comparison to their own poor
darlings, and then she said, again, "It is a dreadful thing to be so
poor."

"We are not so poor as we might be?" said her mother, gravely. "Think
how it would have been if we had lost one of them, dear. God has been
very good to us, and we must not be so ungrateful as to murmur because
we have not all that others have, or all that