t Morry to bed she found wet spots on his
cushions, but she did not mention them. Ellens can be wise. She only
handled the limp little figure rather more gently than usual, and
said rather more cheery things, perhaps. Perhaps that was why the
small fellow under her hands decided to appeal in his desperation to
her. It was possible--things were always possible--that Ellen might
know something of--of step-ones. For Morry was battling with the
pitifully unsatisfactory information Jolly had given him before
understanding had conceived the kind little lie. It was, of
course,--Morry put it that way because "of course" sometimes comforts
you,--of course just possible that Jolly's step-one might be
different. Ellen might know of there being another kind.

So, under the skilful, gentle hands, the boy looked up and chanced
it. "Ellen," he said--"Ellen, are they all that kind,--_all_ of 'em?
Jolly's kind, I mean? I thought poss'bly you might know one"--

"Heart alive!" breathed Ellen, in fear of his sanity. She felt his
temples and his wrists and his limp little body. Was he going to be
sick now, just as his father and She were coming home?--now, of all
times! Which would be better to give him, quinine, or aconite and
belladonna?

"Never mind," sighed Morry, hopelessly. Ellens--he might have
known--were not made to tell you _close_ things like that. They were
made to undress you and give you doses and laugh and wheel your chair
around. Jollys were better than Ellens, but they told you pretty hard
things sometimes.

In bed he lay and thought out his little puzzles and steeled himself
for what was to come. He pondered over the word Jolly had looked up
in the dictionary for him. It was a puzzly word,--Rec-om-pense,--but
he thought he understood it now. It meant something that made up to
you for something you'd suffered,--"suffered," that was what it said.
And Morry had suffered--oh, _how!_ Could it be possible there was
anything that would make up for little, limp, sorrowful legs that had
never been?

With the fickleness of night-thoughts his musings flitted back to
step-ones again. He shut his eyes and tried to imagine just the right
kind of one,--the kind a boy would be glad to have come home with his
Dadsy. It looked an easy thing to do, but there were limitations.

"If I'd ever had a real one, it would be easier," Morry thought
wistfully. Of course, any amount easier! The mothers you read about
and the Holy Ones you saw i