to wear it to-night," and Kit held up a modicum
of blue gauze which certainly did not bear the slightest resemblance to
a garment, and regarded it anxiously. Jemima herself, a mere battered
hulk of a doll, lay in a grimy chemise staring with lack-lustre eyes at
the ceiling.

"I suppose Kit is not able to walk?" asked Anna, looking rather timidly
at the formidable Mrs. Martin; but to her surprise the rugged,
forbidding features softened and grew womanly in a moment.

"Law bless you, miss, the poor lamb has never stood on her feet in her
life, and never will as long as she lives. The doctors at the hospital
yonder say that when she gets older and stronger she will be able to
use crutches; but she is as weakly as a baby now, for all she has
turned eight."

"Kit's a slight stronger than she was last year," interposed Caleb,
laying down the boots he was cobbling; but Ma'am was down on him in a
moment.

"You may as well shut your mouth, Caleb, if you have got nothing better
to say than that, and if you have not eyes to see the dear lamb is
dwindling more and more every day in this cellar of a place. 'Plenty of
fresh air and light,' says the doctor, 'and as much nourishment as you
can get her to swallow,' and all the winter we have to burn gas or sit
in darkness through the livelong day, and the fog choking the breath
out of one."

"It is our misfortune, sir, as Kezia knows," began Caleb feebly; but
his pale blue eyes grew watery as he spoke; "it is not much of an 'ome
when one has seen better days, but to my thinking Solomon was in the
right when he talked of that dinner of herbs. If Kezia had a contented
mind we should maybe all of us get on better."

"A contented fiddlestick!" exclaimed Mrs. Martin, so angrily that
Malcolm thought it wise to make a diversion, especially as a warm fishy
odour in the adjoining kitchen heralded the near arrival of the
noontide repast. When he saw more of the Martins he invariably noticed
the smell of fish; it seemed to be their principal diet--fish broiled
or fried or boiled, or even at tea-time shrimps or periwinkles. He saw
that Anna found the atmosphere oppressive, and determined to beat a
hasty retreat.

"Well, we must be going," he observed. "Good-day, Kit. Now I wonder, if
I were to give you a doll, what sort you would like?" Then Kit, who had
been frowning fiercely over the ball dress, looked up at him with
astonished blue eyes.

"A real new dollie for me," she said breathles