usual careless
good-humor.

"Don't be croaking, Cousin,--I hate it!" he would say; "don't you see
that the child is only growing. Children always lose strength when they
grow fast."

"But she has that cough!"

"O! nonsense of that cough!--it is not anything. She has taken a little
cold, perhaps."

"Well, that was just the way Eliza Jane was taken, and Ellen and Maria
Sanders."

"O! stop these hobgoblin' nurse legends. You old hands got so wise, that
a child cannot cough, or sneeze, but you see desperation and ruin at
hand. Only take care of the child, keep her from the night air, and
don't let her play too hard, and she'll do well enough."

So St. Clare said; but he grew nervous and restless. He watched Eva
feverishly day by day, as might be told by the frequency with which
he repeated over that "the child was quite well"--that there wasn't
anything in that cough,--it was only some little stomach affection, such
as children often had. But he kept by her more than before, took her
oftener to ride with him, brought home every few days some receipt or
strengthening mixture,--"not," he said, "that the child _needed_ it, but
then it would not do her any harm."

If it must be told, the thing that struck a deeper pang to his heart
than anything else was the daily increasing maturity of the child's mind
and feelings. While still retaining all a child's fanciful graces, yet
she often dropped, unconsciously, words of such a reach of thought, and
strange unworldly wisdom, that they seemed to be an inspiration. At such
times, St. Clare would feel a sudden thrill, and clasp her in his arms,
as if that fond clasp could save her; and his heart rose up with wild
determination to keep her, never to let her go.

The child's whole heart and soul seemed absorbed in works of love and
kindness. Impulsively generous she had always been; but there was
a touching and womanly thoughtfulness about her now, that every one
noticed. She still loved to play with Topsy, and the various colored
children; but she now seemed rather a spectator than an actor of their
plays, and she would sit for half an hour at a time, laughing at the odd
tricks of Topsy,--and then a shadow would seem to pass across her face,
her eyes grew misty, and her thoughts were afar.

"Mamma," she said, suddenly, to her mother, one day, "why don't we teach
our servants to read?"

"What a question child! People never do."

"Why don't they?" said Eva.

"Because it is