tears again.

'Poor little Ruth! I'll go and see her to-day, Naomi, and ask if there is
anything we can do for her,' said Sarah; and she dressed with more
alacrity than usual, in her desire to go and visit Naomi's home.

Horatia was always up earlier than Sarah, and generally went for a run in
the park before breakfast. She had just come in and was sitting at the
breakfast-table chattering with Mrs Clay when Sarah appeared, and, with a
hurried 'Good-morning' to them both, plunged into the subject of which
she was full. 'Naomi's sister is ill, mother. I'm going to see her this
morning, so will you, please, go to the mills with Horatia?' she said.

Mrs Clay looked a little vexed. 'Your father will be grieved if you don't
go, Sarah. 'E thinks you might go to your own mills sometimes, instead
of always goin' to your uncle Howroyd's,' she protested.

'They're not my own mills. I have nothing to do with them. If I had I'd
soon alter them,' Sarah replied hotly. 'Besides, Uncle Howroyd's mill is
a pleasure to go over; my father's are a pain.'

'Oh Sarah, you do say such things! An' w'at-ever you mean I don't know
'alf the time. I'm sure there's no need to go over more of the mills than
you like. You can stop before you get a pain, if that's w'at you mean,'
Mrs Clay added doubtfully, for Sarah had begun to laugh.

'It's not a pain in my body, mother; it's a pain in my mind that they
give me.--But I would have gone with you to-day, Horatia,' she observed,
turning to her schoolfellow, 'if my maid Naomi's sister had not been
taken ill; but I must go and see how she is. And I shall take Naomi with
me, and let her have a holiday for the rest of the day,' she announced.

Mrs Clay did not rebuke her daughter for taking it upon herself to give a
servant a holiday, any more than she did for settling her plans for the
day without any reference to her mother; but only said plaintively,
'W'at's the matter with little Ruth? I suppose it's nothin' catchin', or
they'd 'ave told me first; but still, I do think I should be more use
than you, Sarah; you don't know anythin' about sickness. W'at 'as Ruth
got?'

'Croup, and I thought I'd take her some jelly or something; children
always like jelly,' said Sarah.

'Jelly--when the poor child can't swallow, very like! You'd better by
'alf let me go, Sarah; the poor mother'll not 'ave a moment to talk to
you if the child's really bad, an' you'll only find yourself in the way.
You go with Horati