ve telled God. I feel better,
'n' I'm willin' He should look."

"Well, then, dear, that's right--go to sleep."

"And now, Hollis, do you s'pose He'll send my spirrick back to me?"

"What are you talking about, Topknot? Your spirit's in your body, child.
Go to sleep."

"No, it isn't in my body, too! I want my nice good little spirrick to
come back," murmured the child. "Auntie said 'twould stay to me if I's
good."

Fly was thinking of her unseen guardian angel.

It was a troubled night for Horace. Fly waked him no less than three
times, to ask him if she had the measles.

"No, child, no; don't wake me for that again."

"Well, you ought to not go to sleep 'fore I do. You're a fast boy,
Hollis!"

Morning came, and Fly was rather languid, as might have been expected
after such a night.

"I don't see," mused Mrs. Fixfax, "where she caught this dreadful cold,
unless it was your keeping the room so hot yesterday, children."

Fly hid her face in her brother's back hair, for she was riding
pickaback down stairs.

"And can we go to see that Poland lady?" said Dotty.

"If you asked _me_, I answer, No," said Horace, bluntly. "At any rate,
Fly mustn't stir a step out of the house to-day."

"I didn't ask you, Horace. I asked Mrs. Fixfax. She is the one that has
the care of us."

"I really don't know what to say about it," replied the housekeeper,
hesitating. "We will wait and see how she seems after breakfast."

"Rather a cool way of setting my opinion one side," thought Horace,
indignantly.

Fly ate only two small buckwheat cakes, but seemed lively enough, as
she always did when there was a prospect of going anywhere.

"I don't suppose it is exactly the thing, after steaming her so," said
Mrs. Fixfax, as if talking to herself,--she did not even look at
Horace;--"but really I don't know what else to do. I couldn't keep her
at home unless the rest of the children staid; and if I did I presume
she'd get killed some other way. She's one of the kind that's never
safe, except in bed, with the door locked, and the key in your pocket."

"Let her manage it to suit herself," thought brother Horace, deeply
wounded; "she knows _my_ opinion."

When Madam Pragoffyetski came, the housekeeper went down to the parlor
to introduce the children--a step which Horace thought highly
unnecessary. He was charmed at once with the foreign lady's affable
manners, and would have liked to go with her, if only Fly could have
been left