rts up and looks about her wildly.

"Oh, mother, is it you?" And she sinks back upon her pillow, looking
now inquiringly from face to face.

"Father--where is father?" she asks.

"Asleep, dear."

"Oh! Is he? I'm glad."

Her eyes close wearily.

"Do you feel any pain, Mary?" inquired the doctor.

"Yes, sir--in my head. It aches and beats so."

The cry of "Father" had reached the ears of Morgan, who is sleeping in
the next room, and roused him into consciousness. He knows the doctor's
voice. Why is he here at this late hour? "Do you feel any pain, Mary?"
The question he hears distinctly, and the faintly uttered reply also.
He is sober enough to have all his fears instantly excited. There is
nothing in the world that he loves as he loves that child. And so he
gets up and dresses himself as quickly as possible; the stimulus of
anxiety giving tension to his relaxed nerves.

"Oh, father!" The quick ears of Mary detect his entrance first, and a
pleasant smile welcomes him.

"Is she very sick, doctor?" he asks, in a voice full of anxiety.

"She's a sick child, sir; you should have sent for me earlier." The
doctor speaks rather sternly, and with a purpose to rebuke.

The reply stirs Morgan, and he seems to cower half timidly under the
words, as if they were blows. Mary has already grasped her father's
hand, and holds on to it tightly.

After examining the case a little more closely, the doctor prepares
some medicine, and, promising to call early in the morning, goes away.
Mrs. Slade follows soon after; but, in parting with Mrs. Morgan, leaves
something in her hand, which, to the surprise of the latter, proves to
be a ten-dollar bill. The tears start to her eyes; and she conceals the
money in her bosom--murmuring a fervent "God bless her!"

A simple act of restitution is this on the part of Mrs. Slade, prompted
as well by humanity as a sense of justice. With one hand her husband
has taken the bread from the family of his old friend, and thus with
the other she restores it.

And now Morgan and his wife are alone with their sick child. Higher the
fever rises, and partial delirium seizes upon her over-excited brain.
She talks for a time almost incessantly. All her trouble is about her
father; and she is constantly referring to his promise not to go out in
the evening until she gets well. How tenderly and touchingly she
appeals to him; now looking up into his face in partial recognition;
and now calling anxiously a