use to mourn over the loss of what his heart had wound itself
around.

"I wish some one would come and tell me how Mildred is," said Arthur
presently to himself, after half an hour had passed when he had been
crying on the rug. "I wonder is the doctor going to stay there all night?"

Poor little Arthur! it was very hard work waiting there all alone with no
one to speak to, not even Hector the house-dog, his friend and confidant;
for a servant had gone into the town and taken him with him. Presently the
door opened, and he started up eagerly. It was the housemaid, and the
candle that she held in her hand showed a grave, tear-stained face.

"Mr. Arthur, will you come upstairs?" she said. "Mistress sent me to tell
you. Will you come up to the nursery?"

"Why--what--may I really? What, is she better then?" asked Arthur
joyfully, and yet with a certain trembling at his heart, as he saw the
expression on Anna's face.

"Oh, no, Mr. Arthur," she said, bursting into tears. "Poor, dear little
darling, she can't scarce breathe; its dreadful to hear her, and she such
a sweet little pet. Oh, dear, dear, dear, and whatever will mistress do,
and master?"

But Arthur was not crying now as he went slowly up the stairs, feeling as
if it was all a dream, and not at all as if these were the same stairs
that he generally mounted, or that this was the nursery door where he had
generally bounded in with a laughing shout to the bright little sister
who now lay very near the shore of the other land. She was a very little
girl; not two years ago she had first come; and Arthur, who had been
half-afraid of the tiny baby that lay in the nurse's arms so still and
quiet, had by degrees learnt to love her with all his heart. He knew just
the best ways to please her, and to make her voice ring out the merry crow
he so liked to hear; and always, when she saw her brother coming up the
avenue that led to the house, she would stretch out her tiny arms, and try
to jump from her nurse's arms to meet him.

It was only a few hours ago that Arthur had waved his hand to her, and
made Hector jump and roll along the ground, that she might see him. She
had looked so bright and rosy then, and now it was all so different!

The room felt warm as he entered, and there seemed to be a great many
people around the little white bed where Mildred lay. Arthur never, never
forgot that scene; it lay on his heart like a strange, sad picture all his
life. He could not se