viewing the
little figure with the great, serious look on its face. "What a
doleful expression, Winnie! You look as if you had, like Atlas, the
whole world on your shoulders."

"Nellie," interrupted the child--for indeed she seemed little more than
such--with the faintest quiver in her voice, "did you ever think, and
think, and think, till your head seemed bursting, and all your thoughts
got whirled together? No? Ah, well, I have; and somehow when I get
into these moods everything becomes muddled, and I find myself all in a
maze. Oh!" and Winnie spoke with passionate vehemence, "often I would
give I don't know how much to find some one who could understand and
explain away my thoughts."

"Why not speak to your mother?" asked Nellie, rather surprised at this
new phase in her friend's character; "surely she should be able to help
you."

But the little girl shook her head despondingly. "No, no, Nellie; my
stepmother is very kind and pretty, but I don't see much of her, and
she would only laugh at me."

They were strolling leisurely along the street now, and the child's
voice had a plaintive ring in it as she continued: "I was very ill
about a year ago--so ill, Nellie, that I had to lie in bed day after
day for a long time. I can't tell what was wrong with me, but I know
the doctor used to look very grave when he saw me; and one day, after
he had gone away, nurse went about my room crying softly to herself. I
was too weak to care or think, and only wondered dreamily what she was
crying for, till my stepmother entered, and I noticed that her eyes
were red too. They imagined I was sleeping, I suppose, for nurse quite
loudly asked, 'Is there no hope?' O Nellie! I shall never forget that
moment, never so long as I live. I seemed to realize that I was
dying--really, truly dying--and the thought was awful. What would
happen to me after death? I could not, I dared not die. Springing
with sudden strength from the bed, I tried to rush anywhere, screaming,
'Save me! don't let me die!' in the most awful agony. Then came a long
blank. I never forgot that time, but I never spoke of it to any one.
Where was the use? I should only have been laughed at, and told to
think about living, not dying."

There was something so pathetic in the way all this was told, there was
such an amount of pathos in the quivering voice, that Nellie's heart
ached and the tears rushed to her eyes.

"Winnie," she began gently, "I know wh