ter; we don't want all of us to
take it."

When the men were gone, the landlady went up to Christie to see if he
were really ill. She tried to wake him, but he looked wildly in her
face, and did not seem to know her. So she lifted him by main force into
a little dark room under the stairs, which was filled with boxes and
rubbish. She was not an unkind woman; she would not turn the poor child
into the street in his present condition; so she made him up a little
bed on the floor, and giving him a drink of water, she left him, to
continue her work. That evening she fetched the parish doctor to see
him, and he told her that Christie was in a fever.

For many days little Christie hung between life and death. He was quite
unconscious of all that went on; he never heard the landlady come into
the room; he never saw her go out. She was the only person who came near
him, and she could give him very little attention, for she had so much
to do. But she used to wonder why Christie talked so often of "Home,
sweet Home;" through all his wanderings of mind this one idea seemed to
run. Even in his delirium, little Christie was longing for "the city
bright."

But, after a time, Christie began to recover; he regained his
consciousness, and slowly, very slowly, the fever left him. But he was
so weak that he could not even turn in bed; and he could scarcely speak
above a whisper. Oh, how long and dreary the days were to him! Mrs.
White had begun to grow tired of waiting on him, and so Christie was for
many a long hour without seeing any one to whom he could speak.

It was a very dark little chamber, only lighted from the passage, and
Christie could not even see a bit of blue sky. He felt very much alone
in the world. All day long there was no sound but the distant shouts of
the children in the court, and in the evening he could hear the noise of
the men in the great lodging-room. Often he was awake the greater part
of the night, and lay listening to the ticking of the clock on the
stairs, and counting the strokes hour after hour. And then he would
watch the faint gray light creeping into the dark room, and listen to
the footsteps of the men going out to their daily work.

No one came to see Christie. He wondered that Mr. Wilton did not ask
after him, when he missed him from the mission-room. Oh, how glad
Christie would have been to see him! But the days passed slowly by, and
he never came, and Christie wondered more and more. Once he