d two heads were better than one, and had insisted on calling in
a second opinion.

Yes; they all said little Miss Joy was better. But in what did this
betterness consist? She was still lying in that upper chamber, whence
she had always smiled her good-morning on Patience Harrison, and sang
her hymn of thanksgiving as the little birds sing their matins to the
rising sun.

Better! yes, she was better; for there was now no danger to her life.
But the fall had injured her back, and she could not move without pain.
The colour was gone from her rosy lips, and the light from those lovely
gentian eyes was more soft and subdued. Little Miss Joy, who had been
as blithe as a bird on the bough and so merry and gladsome, that she
deserved her name of "Little Sunbeam," was now a patient sick child,
never complaining, never fretful, and always greeting Uncle Bobo with a
smile--a smile which used to go to his heart, and send him down to his
little shop sighing out--as to-day--

"Better--better! I don't see it; the doctor doesn't know! What are
doctors for, if they can't make a child well? I pay enough. I don't
grudge them their money, but I expect to see a return for it. And here
comes Patience Harrison to tell me what I don't see--that my little
sunbeam is better."

Patience Harrison was crossing the row to Uncle Bobo's door as he
spoke. Her face wore the same expression of waiting for something or
some one that never came, as it did on the morning when we first saw
her looking up and looking down the row for Jack.

It was a wonderfully warm September. No news had been brought of the
wanderer: the news for which her soul thirsted. George Paterson, it is
true, had heard an inkling of news, but it was not anything certain.
He had heard from a sailor that Jack Harrison had been seen aboard the
_Galatea_ by a passenger who had been put ashore as the _Galatea_
passed the Lizard; and tidings had come that the _Galatea_ had been
lost off the coast of Spain, and only nine of the crew or passengers
aboard had survived to tell the tale! That the _Galatea_ was lost
seemed certain, but that Jack was aboard her was not proved. The man
who reported that he had seen him could not be sure of his name. He
heard him called Jack, but so were hundreds of other boys. He had
understood that he was a runaway, kept on sufferance by the captain to
please the second mate; but that was all, and it was not much.
Certainly not enough to warr