h to die; but I thought he was too big
to be ill like that.'

'Biddy,' said Alie sternly, 'you are talking nonsense again. You know
big people are ill often, and sometimes they get better and sometimes
they die. Don't you remember Mrs. Hay--Meta Hay's mamma? She was ill
and----'

'Yes, I quite forgot,' exclaimed Biddy eagerly; 'I didn't think. Yes,
Meta's mamma was very ill, and she died. I wish I'd remembered; and she
wasn't at all old like Grandmamma Vane.'

She spoke almost cheerfully. Again Mrs. Vane glanced at her elder
daughter.

'It's no use,' she was beginning, but Alie interrupted. How she wished
the unfortunate Mrs. Hay had not been the first instance to occur to
her!

'_Children_ get ill and die too sometimes,' Alie went on, 'and big
people very often get better. There was Captain Leonard next door to us
at home----'

'And--I know--the boy-that-brought-the-potatoes' papa,' cried Biddy. 'I
_am_ so glad I thought of him. I was in the kitchen one morning fetching
sand for Tweetums's cage and he came in, and cook asked how was his
papa, and he said, "Finely better, I thank ye, mum." I think cook said
he was a _Hirish_ boy,' Bridget hurried on in her excitement--and when
she was excited I am afraid her 'h's' were apt to suffer--Mrs. Vane
gasped! 'I am _so_ glad I thought of him. Papa will get better like the
potato boy's father. I'll say it in my prayers. Dear mamma, I won't
forget. And I _will_ try to be good and not tear my frocks nor speak
without thinking.'

The tears were coming now, but Biddy knew mamma did not like her to
begin to cry, and truly it was no wonder, for once she began it was by
no means easy to say when she would leave off! She choked them down as
well as she could. And the little face, hot and flushed now, was timidly
raised to her mother's for a kiss of forgiveness.

It was not refused, but a sigh accompanied it, which went to the child's
heart. But there was no time for more, as at that moment the hall door
was heard to open and Mr. Vane's and Rough's voices sounded outside.

Quite subdued, desperately penitent, Bridget went back to her place. Her
head was full as well as her heart. She had so many things to think over
that she felt as if she could not eat. First and foremost was the
strange newly awakened anxiety about her father. She looked at him as he
came in as she had never looked at him before, almost expecting to see
some great and appalling change in his appearance. But