on't like to feel as I do so often;
but how can I help it? Every thing goes wrong with me. I thought when
you came I'd got somebody that wouldn't get tired of me, and it frets me
to see you thinking all the time of that beggar-boy."

"I do indeed love you, dear Willie," replied his little cousin, rising,
and clasping him around the neck; "but I wish poor Archie had time to
lie down on a soft couch like yours, and had a kind mother to kiss him,
and fan him, and soothe away his pain, as you have. I'm afraid to hear
you talk pettishly, when you have so many comforts, for mamma says 'God
sometimes takes away our good things if we do not know how to prize them
and be thankful for them,'" and the child ran to her mother, whose voice
she heard in the hall.

It was very well to leave the murmuring boy alone just then, for her
little prattle was not without its effect upon her cousin, who began to
think that perhaps there were others in the world as miserably off as
himself.

"I'll go with Kittie to see the poor lad, any way," soliloquized he. "It
won't do me any harm, and may be it will amuse me a little while."

Still selfish, poor youth! If it had only been, "May be it will amuse
him a little while," then the obtrusive hump wouldn't be so heavy, and
the murmuring, repining spirit would become joyous and grateful. But we
will have patience with thee for a while yet. It is so easy, with this
healthy, robust frame, to reproach the diseased and fretful one. We will
try to be lenient toward thy complainings.

CHAPTER V.

The sun had been up for a long time, and the old grandmother had the
breakfast upon the table. She hadn't called Archie, for she knew the
boy's habits, and supposed he was busy with his books as usual, so she
helped her son to his hasty meal, and saw him and his trowel and pipe a
long distance without the door before she ventured to disturb her
grandchild's quiet. Thump, thump, thump, upon the bedroom wall, and not
an answering sound, yet, after a moment, there seemed to be a stir, and
some words that were not intelligible to her obtuse ear. She didn't wait
much longer, but lifted the latch and entered his room.

What ails the boy? His eyes are wild and fierce, and his figure is
tossed from side to side of the narrow bed, while he mutters of his
mother, and of a sweet lady, and a gentle child; and then he presses a
parched hand to his brow, and begs them not to heap up the hot coals
there, but to b