pans, but the button wasn't there. I hope it will be washed
ashore one day, and so I look along the banks, but I haven't seen a
sign of it yet!'

'I'm asking God to give it back to me every day,' said Teddy, with a
little decided nod, 'and I think He'll do it. You ask Him too, Nancy, and
perhaps He'll do it quicker.'

'I've asked God every day to make you better, and I promised Him if He
would do it I would be the Captain's soldier. Yes, I did, and I said I
would give up being a sailor, and be just a soldier, like you are.'

Nancy made this statement with great solemnity, and Teddy beamed
with delight.

'And are you really enlisted?'

'I don't quite know, but I'm trying to be good, and I ask Jesus to help
me every day.'

Then there was silence. Nancy sat down on the rug, and took the large
tabby cat on her lap.

'Did you think you was going to die?' she asked presently.

'I didn't think nothing at all till I woke up, and saw mother crying over
me, and then I felt dreadful tired and ill. I asked her one day where she
would bury me, for I was sure I was much too ill to get better, and
she--well, she smiled, and said God was making me stronger every day. I
didn't feel I was better a bit.'

'Would you like to have died and gone to heaven?'

'Yes,' Teddy answered promptly, 'of course I should. Wouldn't you?'

Nancy shook her head. 'I might if I was quite sure the angel would carry
me safely all the way without dropping me, or leaving me in the clouds
before we got there; but I think I like to live here best. Besides, I
don't think I'm good enough to go to heaven yet.'

'I don't think it's being good gets us to heaven. Jesus died to let us,
you know, like the hymn says,--

"Jesus loves me! He who died
Heaven's gate to open wide;
He will wash away my sin,
Let His little child come in."

Have you asked Him to forgive you, Nancy?'

Nancy nodded. 'Yes, when you was so ill. I felt I had been so wicked that
God was punishing me.'

Here, reverting to more earthly topics, Nancy held up the cat arrayed in
her sailor hat and jacket.

'Look, this is Jack Tar! Doesn't she make a jolly sailor?'

A gleeful, hearty peal of laughter came from Teddy, and was heard in the
adjoining room by his grandmother with comfort. She called Mrs. John.

'Hear that, now! Why, he's getting quite himself again; it does him good
to have a child to talk to. She must come again.'

And this Nancy did, and the roses began to come bac