gently as I could. “Won’t you come and talk to me for a little while?” Disregarding the latter part of my sentence, she said mournfully, “Do you weally fink so?”

I nodded my head. She let the cat slip to the floor, with a wrathful “Get downstairs, you wetched beast,” and then went silently away. There was a little, dark corner near a back staircase, to which she often retreated in times of great trouble. There I think, she passed the next hour. About nine o’clock she appeared and from that time until nearly every one in the house had gone to bed, she wandered restlessly, but quietly, about the parlors and halls. I knew what she was waiting for—poor, little, lonely creature. Shortly after eleven, Mrs. Drummond put her head in the room. “Why, Daisy,” fretfully, “aren’t you in bed yet? Go right upstairs.”

The child silently obeyed, refusing, by a disdainful gesture, my offer to carry her. That night I could not get to sleep. It seemed as if I too was listening for a returning footstep. About one o’clock, there was a sound on the staircase. I got up, opened my door, and seeing that the night-light was burning in the hall, stepped out.

Robertson, with his hand on the railing, and a terribly red face, was coming slowly upstairs. Just as he reached his door, a little, white-robed figure stole into the hall. She ran up to him. “Oh my darlin’, darlin’ boy,” with a curious catching of her breath, “I fought you was lost, like de Babes in de Wood.”

He steadied himself against the wall, only half comprehending what she said. Then he muttered thickly, “Go to bed, child.”

“Vewy well,” she murmured obediently, then standing on tip-toe, “Kiss me good-night, Woland.”

With abashed eyes and shamed countenance, the young man looked down at the innocent, baby face, shining out of its tangle of curls. He was not fit to kiss her and he knew it. He turned his head from her, and in tones harsher than he really meant said, “Go away, Daisy.”

The child still clung to him. She did not understand why the caress should be denied her. Suddenly his mood changed. He uttered an oath, pushed her violently from him, and staggered into his room.

The child fell, struck her head heavily against the floor, then lay quite white and still. I hastened toward her, took her up in my arms, and rapped at her mother’s door. Mrs. Drummond was still up, sitting before a table, making entries in an account book. She started in nervous surprise, then when I explained matters, looked toward the empty crib, and said, “She must have slipped by me when my back was turned. Has she fainted? She sometimes does. I don’t know why she should be such a delicate child. Please put her in the crib. I will get some brandy.”

I glanced uneasily at the child’s pale face, then quitted the room. Early the next morning, Mrs. Drummond knocked at my door. “I wish you would come and look at Daisy,” she said querulously; “she has not slept all night, and now she has fallen into a kind of stupor; I can’t get her to speak to me.”

I hurried to the child’s cot, and bending over it said, “Daisy, don’t you want some breakfast?”

She neither moved nor spoke, and after making other ineffectual attempts to rouse her, I said, “The child is ill—you must call a doctor.”

“Suppose we get Mr. Robertson to speak to her,” she replied. “This may be only temper.”

On going to his room I shook him vigorously. “Robertson, Robertson, wake up.” After some difficulty, I roused him. He shuffled off the bed as I told him my errand, and in a moment we were beside the sick child.

“Speak to her,” said Mrs. Drummond impatiently; “she is ill.”

He brushed his hand over his face, and