like that if you really knew."

"I think you are the stupidest little creature I ever met!" responded
Flower. "I'm to know something, and it's wonderful that I care to eat. I
tell you, child, I haven't touched food all day, and I'm starving.
What's the matter? Speak! I'll slap you if you don't."

"There's bread on the sideboard," said Fly. "I'm sorry you're starving.
It's only that father is ill; that--that he's very ill. I don't suppose
it is anything to you, or you wouldn't have done it."

"Give me that bread," said Flower. She turned very white, snatched a
piece out of Fly's hand, and put it to her lips. She did not swallow it,
however. A lump seemed to rise in her throat.

"I'm faint for want of food," she said in a minute. "I'd like some wine.
If David was here, he'd give it to me. What's that about your father?
Ill? He was quite well this morning; he spoke to me."

She shivered.

"I'm awfully faint," she said in a moment. "Please, Fly, be merciful.
Give me half a glass of sherry."

Fly started, rushed to the sideboard, poured a little wine into a glass,
and brought it to Flower.

"There!" she said in a cold though broken-hearted voice. "But you
needn't faint; he's not your father; you wouldn't have done it if he was
your father."

Flower tossed off the wine.

"I'm better now," she said.

Then she rose from the deep arm-chair, stood up, and put her two hands
on Fly's shoulder.

"What have I done? What do you accuse me of?"

"Don't! You hurt me, Flower; your hands are so hard."

"I'll take them off. What have I done?"

"We are awfully sorry you came here. We all are; we all are."

"Yes? you can be sorry or glad, just as you please! What have I done?"

"You have made father, our own father--you have made him ill. The
doctor thinks perhaps he'll die, and in any case he will be blind."

"What horrid things you say, child! _I_ haven't done this."

"Yes. Father was out all last night. You took baby away, and he went to
look for her, and he wasn't well before, and he got a chill. It was a
bad chill, and he has been ill all day. You did it, but he wasn't your
father. We are all so dreadfully sorry that you came here."

Flower's hands dropped to her sides. Her eyes curiously dilated, looked
past Fly, gazing so intently at something which her imagination conjured
up that the child glanced in a frightened way over her shoulder.

"What's the matter, Flower? What are you looking at?"

"Myself."

"B