she would do
anything for money to take her sister away! What did she care for herself
when her darling was dying--dying for the want of two hundred pounds!

Just then Jeannie woke up, and stretched her arms out to her.

"So you are back at last, dear," she said in her sweet childish voice.
"It has been so lonely without you. Why, how wet you are! Take off your
jacket at once, Gussie, or you will soon be as ill as"--and here she
broke out into a terrible fit of coughing, that seemed to shake her
tender frame as the wind shakes a reed.

Her sister turned and obeyed, and then came and sat by the sofa and took
the thin little hand in hers.

"Well, Gussie, and how did you get on with the Printer-devil" (this
was her impolite name for the great Meeson); "will he give you any
more money?"

"No, dear; we quarrelled, that was all, and I came away."

"Then I suppose that we can't go abroad?"

Augusta was too moved to answer; she only shook her head. The child
buried her face in the pillow and gave a sob or two. Presently she was
quiet, and lifted it again. "Gussie, love," she said, "don't be angry,
but I want to speak to you. Listen, my sweet Gussie, my angel. Oh,
Gussie, you don't know how I love you! It is all no good, it is useless
struggling against it, I must die sooner or later; though I am only
twelve, and you think me such a child, I am old enough to understand
that. I think," she added, after pausing to cough, "that pain makes one
old: I feel as though I were fifty. Well, so you see I may as well give
up fighting against it and die at once. I am only a burden and anxiety to
you--I may as well die at once and go to sleep."

"Don't, Jeannie! don't!" said her sister, in a sort of cry; "you are
killing me!"

Jeannie laid her hot hand upon Augusta's arm, "Try and listen to me,
dear," she said, "even if it hurts, because I do so want to say
something. Why should you be so frightened about me? Can any place that I
can go be worse than this place? Can I suffer more pain anywhere, or be
more hurt when I see you crying? Think how wretched it has all been.
There has only been one beautiful thing in our lives for years and years,
and that was your book. Even when I am feeling worst--when my chest
aches, you know--I grow quite happy when I think of what the papers wrote
about you: the _Times_ and the _Saturday Review_, and the _Spectator_,
and the rest of them. They said that you had genius--true genius, you
remember, an