very day, and I've
never been once!" she cried, bursting into a fit of sobbing. "It's
dreadful cowardly, I know; but I could not help it then."

"And she may die!" said George Canninge as he rode slowly home; "and I
have never told her I loved her. Dare I go to see her now?"

He asked himself that question many times, and again many times on the
succeeding days; but he did not go near the place where Hazel Thorne lay
now, in the shabby room, upon the bed roughly made up for her by Mrs
Potts; while Feelier, the very shadow of herself, lay watching
"teacher," and the tears stole down her wasted cheeks as she listened to
Hazel Thorne's excited talking, for the most part incoherent; but here
and there a word came to Feelier's ears, and she wept again, because she
was too weak to get up and wait upon "teacher," whose attack was rapidly
assuming a serious form.

By special arrangement with the doctor, the news as to Hazel's state was
sent to the Burges' after every visit. Not that this was held to
suffice, for little Miss Burge was constantly calling at the doctor's
house, and asking for fresh information when there was none to give.

"I can't bear this no longer, Bill dear," said Miss Burge one morning.
"There's that poor girl lying there in that wretched place, and no one
but strangers to tend her; and it seems as if all her friends had left
her now she is in distress."

"Not all," said Burge, raising his drooping head. "I'm down there every
day; only I can't be admitted to her room, poor dear! I wish I might
be."

"And I've been holding back," sobbed little Miss Burge, "because I felt
afraid of catching the complaint, and the doctor said it would be
madness for me to go; but I'm going down this morning, Bill dear, and if
I die for it I won't mind--at least not very much--for I'm sure I
shouldn't be any good to live if I couldn't help at a time like this.
Hasn't her poor ma been to her yet?"

"No; she isn't fit to go," said Burge. "She is ill, and weak, and
foolish, and the doctor told her that if she went she would only take
the disease home to the little girls. She would only have worried her
poor child and been in the way."

"I'm glad I've never been a mother, Bill, to turn out no more use than
that in trouble," sobbed the little woman. "Now, do drink your tea,
dear; it will do you good."

"Nothing won't do me no good, Betsey," said the poor fellow dejectedly.

"But it looks so bad, dear, to see you l