called "Lighting Dodger;" but
it was the same uncle John, and aunt Martha is the very woman who pets
you so much, and has that pretty clock, with a pendulum in the shape
of a little boy in a swing.

After that wedding there was a long winter. I went to school, but Fel
didn't. She looked so white that I supposed her mother was afraid she
would freeze. Miss Rubie was gone, and there were no lessons to learn;
but Madam Allen didn't care for that; she said Fel was too sick to
study. Whenever I didn't have to take care of the baby, I went to see
her; but that baby needed a great deal of care! For the first month of
her life I wanted to sit by her cradle, night and day, and not let any
one else come near her. The next month I was willing Ned should have
her half the time; and by the third month I cried because I had to
take care of her at all.

CHAPTER XIII.

GOOD BY.

It happened that she was a cross baby. It did not take her long to
forget all about heaven. She liked to pull hair, and she liked to
scratch faces; and no matter how much you trotted her up and down, she
just opened her toothless mouth and cried.

"She's a wicked, awful baby!" exclaimed I, scowling at her till my
eyes ached.

"Div her a pill, _I_ would," said Ned, laughing. He could laugh, for
he didn't have to sit and hold her, as I did.

"Poor little thing isn't well," said mother.

"I don't 'spect she knows whether's she's well or not," returned I, in
disgust. "She just hates everybody, and that's what she's crying
about."

"You grieve me, Madge. I thought you loved this dear sister."

"Well, I did; but I don't love her any more, and I don't ever want to
rock a baby that hates me so hard she can't keep her mouth shut."

"You don't mean you are not glad God sent her? O, Madge!"

"Yes'm, that's what I mean. I'm real sorry he sent her, and I wish
he'd take her back again."

Hasty, bitter speech! Even a child knows better than to talk so
recklessly. Next day, and for many days, those words came back to my
heart like sharp knives. Little sister was very ill, and I knew by the
looks of people's faces that they thought she would cross the dark
river, on the other side of which stand the pearly gates. Mother saw
me roving about the house, crying in corners, and sent me away to the
Allens to stay all night. When I got there, Madam Allen took me right
up in her motherly arms, and tried to soothe me; but I refused to be
comforted.

"I thoug