and night.'

'You never bestowed one thought upon yourself, I believe,' returned
Kate, smiling.

'Upon my word, my dear, when there are so many pleasanter things
to think of, I should be a goose if I did,' said Miss La Creevy.
'By-the-bye, I HAVE thought of somebody too. Do you know, that I observe
a great change in one of this family--a very extraordinary change?'

'In whom?' asked Kate, anxiously. 'Not in--'

'Not in your brother, my dear,' returned Miss La Creevy, anticipating
the close of the sentence, 'for he is always the same affectionate
good-natured clever creature, with a spice of the--I won't say who--in
him when there's any occasion, that he was when I first knew you. No.
Smike, as he WILL be called, poor fellow! for he won't hear of a MR
before his name, is greatly altered, even in this short time.'

'How?' asked Kate. 'Not in health?'

'N--n--o; perhaps not in health exactly,' said Miss La Creevy, pausing
to consider, 'although he is a worn and feeble creature, and has that
in his face which it would wring my heart to see in yours. No; not in
health.'

'How then?'

'I scarcely know,' said the miniature painter. 'But I have watched him,
and he has brought the tears into my eyes many times. It is not a very
difficult matter to do that, certainly, for I am easily melted; still I
think these came with good cause and reason. I am sure that since he has
been here, he has grown, from some strong cause, more conscious of his
weak intellect. He feels it more. It gives him greater pain to know that
he wanders sometimes, and cannot understand very simple things. I have
watched him when you have not been by, my dear, sit brooding by himself,
with such a look of pain as I could scarcely bear to see, and then get
up and leave the room: so sorrowfully, and in such dejection, that
I cannot tell you how it has hurt me. Not three weeks ago, he was a
light-hearted busy creature, overjoyed to be in a bustle, and as
happy as the day was long. Now, he is another being--the same willing,
harmless, faithful, loving creature--but the same in nothing else.'

'Surely this will all pass off,' said Kate. 'Poor fellow!'

'I hope,' returned her little friend, with a gravity very unusual in
her, 'it may. I hope, for the sake of that poor lad, it may. However,'
said Miss La Creevy, relapsing into the cheerful, chattering tone, which
was habitual to her, 'I have said my say, and a very long say it is, and
a very wrong say too,