ng. There
she lay, hour after hour, talking to herself about a great many things;
and had it been light enough you would have seen how flushed her cheeks
were, and how very strangely her eyes looked.

* * *

"The child has a brain fever," said the Doctor to Mrs. Finley.

"No wonder," said the wicked woman, "she had such a dreadful fall down
the cellar stairs. You see how she bruised her face and neck."

The Doctor looked very sharp at Mrs. Finley--so sharp that she stooped
down, pretending to pick something from the floor, that he needn't see
her blush.

"I don't know how I am to nurse a sick child," grumbled Mrs. Finley;
"there's John Madison Harrison Polk, and Sarah Jenny Lind, and Malvina
Cecelia Victoria, and Napoleon Bonaparte, four children of my own to
look after. It's a hard case, Doctor."

"Not so hard a case as little Letty's," said the kind Doctor. "Those
bruises never came from falling down stairs, Mrs. Finley; that child
has been cruelly abused. I _may_ tell of it, and I may _not_,--that
depends upon whether she lives or dies; but I am going to take her home
to my own house, and see what good doctoring can do for her. She looks
like my little dead Mary, and for her sake I'll be a father to her."

So Letty was carried on a litter to Doctor Harris' house; and there,
for a great many weeks, she lay in her little bed, quite crazy--her
beautiful hair shaved off, and her little head blistered to make her
well. The Doctor's wife was a sweet, kind lady;--_she_ thought, too,
that "Letty looked like her little dead Mary," and often, when she held
her little burning hand, the tears would come to her eyes, and she
would pray God to let her live, for she had no child to love now, and
she wanted Letty for her own little girl.

Well, after a long, long while, Letty's senses came slowly back. She
put her little hand to her forehead and tried to remember what had
happened;--she didn't know what to make of the nice, pretty room, and
soft bed with its silken curtains;--she thought she was dreaming, and
rubbed her eyes and looked again, and then hid her face in the sheet
for fear she should see Mrs. Finley, or John, or the police-man;--and
then Mrs. Harris put her finger on Letty's lip and told her not to talk
now, because she was sick and weak, but that she was always going to
live with her, and be, not her servant, but her own dear little girl;
and then Letty kissed Mrs. H