nd went out into the passage. Scruff ran and
lay down at Mr. Treffry's door. Herr Paul looked at him. "Ach!" he
said, tapping his chest, "ungrateful hound!" And opening the front door
he went out on tiptoe....

Late that afternoon Greta stole hatless through the lilac bushes; she
looked tired after her night journey, and sat idly on a chair in the
speckled shadow of a lime-tree.

'It is not like home,' she thought; 'I am unhappy. Even the birds are
silent, but perhaps that is because it is so hot. I have never been sad
like this--for it is not fancy that I am sad this time, as it is
sometimes. It is in my heart like the sound the wind makes through a
wood, it feels quite empty in my heart. If it is always like this to be
unhappy, then I am sorry for all the unhappy things in the world; I am
sorrier than I ever was before.'

A shadow fell on the grass, she raised her eyes, and saw Dawney.

"Dr. Edmund!" she whispered.

Dawney turned to her; a heavy furrow showed between his brows. His eyes,
always rather close together, stared painfully.

"Dr. Edmund," Greta whispered, "is it true?"

He took her hand, and spread his own palm over it.

"Perhaps," he said; "perhaps not. We must hope."

Greta looked up, awed.

"They say he is dying."

"We have sent for the best man in Vienna."

Greta shook her head.

"But you are clever, Dr. Edmund; and you are afraid."

"He is brave," said Dawney; "we must all be brave, you know. You too!"

"Brave?" repeated Greta; "what is it to be brave? If it is not to cry
and make a fuss--that I can do. But if it is not to be sad in here," she
touched her breast, "that I cannot do, and it shall not be any good for
me to try."

"To be brave is to hope; don't give up hope, dear."

"No," said Greta, tracing the pattern of the sunlight on her skirt. "But
I think that when we hope, we are not brave, because we are expecting
something for ourselves. Chris says that hope is prayer, and if it is
prayer, then all the time we are hoping, we are asking for something, and
it is not brave to ask for things."

A smile curved Dawney's mouth.

"Go on, Philosopher!" he said. "Be brave in your own way, it will be
just as good as anybody else's."

"What are you going to do to be brave, Dr. Edmund?"

"I? Fight! If only we had five years off his life!"

Greta watched him as he walked away.

"I shall never be brave," she mourned; "I shall always be wanting to be
happy." And, k