aught, and new marks gained. It galled her to think
she was missing both. She felt so lonely in the company of her
grandmother, she could have gone downstairs and cried on Dutch Debby's
musty lap. Then she strove to picture the room where Benjy was lying,
but her imagination lacked the data. She would not let herself think the
brilliant Benjamin was dead, that he would be sewn up in a shroud just
like his poor mother, who had no literary talent whatever, but she
wondered whether he was groaning like the grandmother. And so, half
distracted, pricking up her ears at the slightest creak on the stairs,
Esther waited for news of her Benjy. The hours dragged on and on, and
the children coming home at one found dinner ready but Esther still
waiting. A dusty sunbeam streamed in through the garret window as though
to give her hope.

Benjamin had been beguiled from his books into an unaccustomed game of
ball in the cold March air. He had taken off his jacket and had got very
hot with his unwonted exertions. A reactionary chill followed. Benjamin
had a slight cold, which being ignored, developed rapidly into a heavy
one, still without inducing the energetic lad to ask to be put upon the
sick list. Was not the publishing day of _Our Own_ at hand?

The cold became graver with the same rapidity, and almost as soon as the
boy had made complaint he was in a high fever, and the official doctor
declared that pneumonia had set in. In the night Benjamin was delirious,
and the nurse summoned the doctor, and next morning his condition was so
critical that his father was telegraphed for. There was little to be
done by science--all depended on the patient's constitution. Alas! the
four years of plenty and country breezes had not counteracted the eight
and three-quarter years of privation and foul air, especially in a lad
more intent on emulating Dickens and Thackeray than on profiting by the
advantages of his situation.

When Moses arrived he found his boy tossing restlessly in a little bed,
in a private little room away from the great dormitories. "The
matron"--a sweet-faced young lady--was bending tenderly over him, and a
nurse sat at the bedside. The doctor stood--waiting--at the foot of the
bed. Moses took his boy's hand. The matron silently stepped aside.
Benjamin stared at him with wide, unrecognizing eyes.

"_Nu_, how goes it, Benjamin?" cried Moses in Yiddish, with mock
heartiness.

"Thank you, old Four-Eyes. It's very good of you