greenery," and on the ripening corn-fields and
gaily-painted flowers in the country, was penetrating also the close
streets of one of the poorest parts of London, cheering some of the
hearts of the weary toiling ones there, into whose lives little sunshine
ever fell, and for a while, it may be, helping them to forget the misery
of their lot, or to some recalling happier days when they dwelt not in a
narrow, crowded street, but in a country village home, amidst grassy
meadows and leafy trees, feeling, as they thought of these things,
though they could not have put the feeling into words, what a poet gone
to his rest says so beautifully,--

"That sorrow's crown of sorrow
Is remembering happier things."

But the very light that cheered revealed more clearly the misery, dirt,
and poverty around.

In one such street, where little pale-faced children, without the
merriment and laughter of childhood, played in a languid, unchildlike
way, sickness prevailed; for fever had broken out, and indoors suffering
ones tossed on beds, if they could be so called, of sickness.

At the door of a small room in one of the houses stood a girl of some
ten or eleven years old, looking out anxiously as if in expectation of
some one, turning every now and then to address a word to her mother,
who lay in the small room on a bed in the corner.

"He baint a-comin' yet," she said, "'cos I knows his step; but he'll be
'long soon--ye see if he don't! I knows as how he will, 'cos he's that
kind; so don't ye fret, mother--the doctor 'ill be here in no time.
There now! Susan Keats giv' me some tea for ye, and I'll get the water
from her and bring you some prime and 'ot--ye see if I don't!" So
saying, the child ran off and went into a room next door, and entering
begged for some "'ot water." "Ye see," she said, addressing a woman
poorly clad like herself, "she be a-frettin', mother is, for the doctor,
for she's badly, is mother, to-day, and she thinks mayhap he'll do her
good."

When the child returned to her mother's room, she found Dr. Heinz (for
it was he) sitting by her mother's side and speaking kindly to her. He
turned round as the child entered. "Come along, Gussie," he said;
"that's right--been getting mother some tea. You'll need to tend her
well, for she's very poorly to-day."

"Ay, ay," muttered the woman, "that's true, that's true. Be kind to
Gussie, poor Gussie, when I am gone, doctor. The young lady--Miss
Warden be her name-