Mrs. Williams' little
bedroom; the kind-hearted woman could not find it in her heart to send
the sick child away. Her husband and the neighbors expostulated with her,
and said that Annie was only a poor little waif.

"She has no call on you," said Jane Allen, a hard-featured woman who
lived next door. "Why should you put yourself out just for a sick lass?
and she'll be much better off in the workhouse infirmary."

But Mrs. Williams shook her head at her hard-featured and hard-hearted
neighbor, and resisted her husband's entreaties.

"Eh!" she said, "but the poor lamb needs a good bit of mothering, and I
misdoubt me she wouldn't get much of that in the infirmary."

So Annie stayed, and tossed from side to side of her little bed, and
murmured unintelligible words, and grew daily a little weaker and a
little more delirious. The parish doctor called, and shook his head over
her; he was not a particularly clever man, but he was the best the
Williamses could afford. While Annie suffered and went deeper into that
valley of humiliation and weakness which leads to the gate of the Valley
of the Shadow of Death, little Nan played with Peggy Williams, and
accustomed herself after the fashion of little children to all the ways
of her new and humble home.

It was on the eighth day of Annie's fever that the Misses Bruce
discovered her, and on the evening of that day Mrs. Willis knelt by her
little favorite's bed. A better doctor had been called in, and all that
money could procure had been got now for poor Annie; but the second
doctor considered her case even more critical, and said that the close
air of the cottage was much against her recovery.

"I didn't make that caricature; I took the girls into the fairies' field,
but I never pasted that caricature into Cecil's book. I know you don't
believe me, Cecil; but do you think I would really do anything so mean
about one whom love? No, No! I am innocent! God knows it. Yes, I am glad
of that--God knows it."

Over and over in Mrs. Willis' presence these piteous words would come
from the fever-stricken child, but always when she came to the little
sentence "God knows I am innocent," her voice would grow tranquil, and a
faint and sweet smile would play round her lips.

Late that night a carriage drew up at a little distance from the cottage,
and a moment or two afterward Mrs. Willis was called out of the room to
speak to Cecil Temple.

"I have found out the truth about Annie; I ha