Mrs. Harrison said no more, but climbed up the narrow staircase to
Joy's room.

"Oh, Goody dear! I _am_ so glad you are come," Joy said, stretching
out her little thin arms and winding them round her friend's neck. "I
have been fidgeting so, hearing you talking to Uncle Bobo downstairs.
And I've been very snappy to Susan, because she will have it I ought to
try to stand. Goody dear, I _can't_."

"Susan knows that as well as I do, dearie. I think she tries to make
you out much stronger than you are, to comfort Uncle Bobo."

"_Dear_ Uncle Bobo!" the child said. "I wish he would not fret about
me. Goody! I was dreaming of a horse tearing after me, just as that
horse did that evening; and then it wasn't a horse at all, but it was
great roaring waves, and I thought Jack was with me, and we were going
to be drowned."

The lines on Mrs. Harrison's forehead deepened, and she tried to say
cheerfully--

"Dreams do not mean anything, dear; and it is said they always go by
contrary, you know."

Then Mrs. Harrison began to settle Joy's pillows, and put back the
curtains so that she might see from her bed the strip of blue sky above
the opposite roofs and through a slight aperture between the two
houses, where Joy could on clear nights see two or three stars, and at
certain, and what seemed to her very long intervals, the moon, on her
lonely way through the heavens.

"Susan says the wedding will be to-morrow, and that you will have to
stay to keep shop while Miss Pinckney is away."

"Yes, dear; and Bet is coming to be with you."

Joy sighed, and said softly--

"Poor Bet! she does love me very much; but, dear Goody, _I_ don't love
her as I love you. When Jack comes home, I shall tell him how kind you
have been to me, and we shall be so happy; only I expect Jack will be
vexed to see me lying here, instead of running out to meet him."

Mrs. Harrison could only turn away her head to hide her tears as Joy
went on:

"Uncle Bobo said the other day, when he came up and found me crying,
just a little bit, 'Why, I shall have to call you little Miss
Sorrowful!' And then he seemed choked, and bustled away. I made up my
mind then I would try to smile always when he came. I should not like
him to call me little Miss Sorrowful, it seems to hurt him so. And
then he always says he ought to have snatched hold of me when the horse
came galloping after us, and that he ought to have been knocked down,
not me. But that is qu