resently,
and you'd better not let her know you've been interfering. You were told
to keep the door locked until the morning, and yet you walk in in the
night."

"She made such a noise banging and kicking, I thought she'd wake up the
other people," Meg said, casting a scowling glance at Elsie, which Elsie
quite believed was put on to deceive her master, just in the same way as
Meg had, she supposed, put on an appearance of terror, under which she
had hidden all that was really important most cleverly.

Meg was then allowed to make good her retreat, and Elsie was taken by
the man into a little room, where a tin coffee-pot and a loaf and butter
were put ready.

She was glad to eat heartily, for she was famishing with hunger. She
devoured as hastily as she could several thick slices of
bread-and-butter, and then asked what she had better take to Duncan,
since no one seemed to be troubling their heads about him.

"A drop of hot coffee," the man said, unconcernedly. "If he can't eat
bread-and-butter he don't want anything."

"He didn't have a bit scarcely all yesterday, and he'd had next to
nothing for three days before that," Elsie said indignantly. "Perhaps
he'd eat some bread and milk if I could get it for him. I'd soon do it
if I might go in the kitchen."

At this moment a customer began to rap on the counter, and the master of
the shop hastily jumped up and went away. Elsie stood waiting
impatiently, but as he did not return, she took up the milk-jug, and
emptied its contents, about a table-spoonful of bluey-white milk, into
the cup she had used.

Duncan was still lying motionless, with closed eyes, when she re-entered
the attic. He took no notice when she spoke, so she lifted his head up,
and put the cup to his lips. With great difficulty she succeeded in
making him swallow a few drops at a time. The raging thirst that had
consumed him in the night had passed away. He had got beyond that. While
she was still holding his head on her arm, the door opened, and Mrs.
Donaldson, as she had told Elsie to call her, put her head inside.

"They tell me Donald is very ill this morning," she said, in her
sweetest tones. "Poor little fellow! what is the matter with him?"

"Meg says it's the fever, like she had when she was little," Elsie
answered.

"Fever!" Mrs. Donaldson echoed in alarm. "Tell me quickly, is he red all
over?"

"Oh no! he's quite white, except just a patch on his cheeks," Elsie
replied.

"How dare