any of you might be, but ill always from babyhood,
without any hope of getting well. To take one case, little Beatrice
Annie Jones had a mother who was a widow, and used to go out to scrub
people's floors and clean the houses; that is what is called being a
charwoman. She had sometimes to go quite a long way to her work, and
could not come back in the middle of the day for dinner; so in the
morning before she went she used to give Beatrice Annie a bit of bread
and an egg, if she had enough money to buy one, and a few sticks, and a
little pan with water in it. Then she used to tidy up the room and go
away, leaving the child alone. The door must be locked, for a thief
might come in and steal the few bits of things there were. The window
was dirty and very high up; Beatrice Annie could only see out of it by
climbing on a rickety chair, and she could not stand there long, for it
hurt her legs and back, for they were not like other little girls' legs
and back, but weak and painful, so that she used to drag herself about
the floor on all fours, like a baby, rather than walk, even though she
was seven years old. The room she and her mother lived in was up many,
many stairs, and it was very seldom she could get out at all; for though
she was very light and small, her mother was too tired to carry her down
after her day's work. Beatrice Annie was suffering from a disease very
common with poor children, called rickets. It means that the bones are
not strong--they are like chalk, and will break very easily; even a fall
off a chair might do it--and it is sometimes caused by the children not
having had enough milk when they were babies.

When her mother left her alone, Beatrice Annie used to look round the
room and sigh. It was a very dreary room. When you are ill, everyone
brings you nice things--flowers and jellies and pictures--to pass the
time. This little girl had only one picture, a bright-coloured almanack,
with a likeness of the King dressed in the scarlet uniform of a soldier,
and she had looked at this so often she was tired of it. She was so
lonely that she would have been glad if even a little mouse had come to
play with her; but the mice did not come to that room; there were not
enough crumbs to please Mr. Mouse. Beatrice Annie could not read; she
had never been to school, for she was not strong enough. So she sat for
a long time on the wooden floor and wondered what she should do. She had
one dirty wooden doll, dressed