all in the past.

"He always seems as if he were thinking of something that hurts him
NOW", she said to herself, "but he has got his money back and he will
get over his brain fever in time, so he ought not to look like that. I
wonder if there is something else."

If there was something else--something even servants did not hear
of--she could not help believing that the father of the Large Family
knew it--the gentleman she called Mr. Montmorency. Mr. Montmorency
went to see him often, and Mrs. Montmorency and all the little
Montmorencys went, too, though less often. He seemed particularly fond
of the two elder little girls--the Janet and Nora who had been so
alarmed when their small brother Donald had given Sara his sixpence. He
had, in fact, a very tender place in his heart for all children, and
particularly for little girls. Janet and Nora were as fond of him as
he was of them, and looked forward with the greatest pleasure to the
afternoons when they were allowed to cross the square and make their
well-behaved little visits to him. They were extremely decorous little
visits because he was an invalid.

"He is a poor thing," said Janet, "and he says we cheer him up. We try
to cheer him up very quietly."

Janet was the head of the family, and kept the rest of it in order. It
was she who decided when it was discreet to ask the Indian gentleman to
tell stories about India, and it was she who saw when he was tired and
it was the time to steal quietly away and tell Ram Dass to go to him.
They were very fond of Ram Dass. He could have told any number of
stories if he had been able to speak anything but Hindustani. The
Indian gentleman's real name was Mr. Carrisford, and Janet told Mr.
Carrisford about the encounter with the
little-girl-who-was-not-a-beggar. He was very much interested, and all
the more so when he heard from Ram Dass of the adventure of the monkey
on the roof. Ram Dass made for him a very clear picture of the attic
and its desolateness--of the bare floor and broken plaster, the rusty,
empty grate, and the hard, narrow bed.

"Carmichael," he said to the father of the Large Family, after he had
heard this description, "I wonder how many of the attics in this square
are like that one, and how many wretched little servant girls sleep on
such beds, while I toss on my down pillows, loaded and harassed by
wealth that is, most of it--not mine."

"My dear fellow," Mr. Carmichael answered cheerily, "the s