in woe unutterable,
was very small, and very dirty and ragged, and had an extremely handsome
intelligent face, with a profusion of wild brown curls. "But I can make
that up to you, poor boy," she added, drawing out her purse, "here is a
shilling for you. Where do you live?"

"At Ramsgate, ma'am."

"At Ramsgate?" exclaimed Katie in surprise, "why, how did you manage to
get here?"

"I come in a lugger, ma'am, as b'longs to a friend o' ourn. We've just
arrived, an' we goes away agin to-morrow."

"Indeed! That will give you little time to see your sick brother. What
is the matter with him?"

"Oh, he's took very bad, ma'am. I'm sorry to say he's bad altogether,
ma'am. Bin an' run'd away from 'ome. A'most broke his mother's 'eart,
he has, an' fall'd sick here, he did."

The small boy paused abruptly at this point, and looked earnestly in
Katie's kind and pitiful face.

"Where does your brother live?" asked Katie.

The small boy looked rather perplexed, and said that he couldn't rightly
remember the name of the street, but that the owner of the lugger
"know'd it." Whereat Katie seemed disappointed, and said she would have
been so glad to have visited him, and given him such little comforts as
his disease might warrant.

"Oh, ma'am," exclaimed the small boy, looking wistfully at her with his
large blue eyes, "_wot_ a pity I've forgot it! The doctor ordered 'im
wine too--it was as much as 'is life was worth not to 'ave wine,--but of
course they couldn't afford to git 'im wine--even cheap wine would do
well enough, at two bob or one bob the bottle. If you was to give me
two bob--shillins I mean, ma'am--I'd git it for 'im to-night."

Katie and her cousin conversed aside in low tones for a minute or two as
to the propriety of complying with this proposal, and came to the
conclusion that the boy was such a nice outspoken honest-like fellow,
that it would do no harm to risk that sum in the circumstances. Two
shillings were therefore put into the boy's dirty little hand, and he
was earnestly cautioned to take care of it, which he earnestly, and no
doubt honestly, promised to do.

"What is your name, boy?" asked Katie, as she was about to leave him.

"Billy--Billy Towler, ma'am," answered the urchin, pulling his forelock
by way of respectful acknowledgment, "but my friends they calls me
Walleye, chiefly in consikence o' my bein' wery much the rewerse of
blind, ma'am, and niver capable of bein' cotched in a s