all that day billy anxiously watched the baby; he tore off her wet clothes, and wrapped the blanket and the sheet tightly round her, and then he coaxed a neighbor to expend one of his pennies on milk, which he warmed and gave with some broken bread to the little hungry creature. he forgot all about himself in his anxiety for sarah ann, and as the day passed on, and she did not sneeze any more, but sat quite warm and bright and chirrupy in his arms, he became more and more light-hearted, and more and more thankful. in his thankfulness he would have offered a little prayer to god, had he known how, for his mother was just sufficiently not a heathen to say to him, now and then, "don't go out without saying your prayers, billy, be sure you say your[pg 241] prayers," and once or twice she had even tried to teach him a clause out of our father. he only remembered the first two words now, and, looking at the baby, he repeated them solemnly several times. at last it was time to go to bed, and as sarah ann was quite nice and sleepy, billy hoped they would have a comfortable night. so they might have had, as far as the baby was concerned, for she nestled off so peacefully, and laid her soft head on billy's breast.

but what ailed the poor little boy himself? his head ached, his pulse throbbed as he lay with the scanty blankets covering him; he shivered so violently that he almost feared he should wake sarah ann. yes, he, not the baby, had taken cold. he, not the baby, was going to have brownchitis or that hinflammation which he dreaded.

the mischief had been done when he tore off his jacket and ran home, through the pitiless sleet, in his ragged shirt-sleeves. well, he was glad it was not sairey ann, and mother would soon be home now, and find her baby[pg 242] well, and not starved, and perhaps she would praise him a little bit, and tell him he was a good boy. he had certainly tried to be a good boy.

all through the night—while his chest ached and ached, and his breath became more and more difficult, and the baby slumbered on, with her little downy head against his breast—he kept wondering, in a confused sort of way, what his mother would say to him, and if the our father, in the only prayer he ever knew, was anything like the father who had been cruel, and who had run away from him and his mother a year ago.

all his thoughts, however, were very vague, and as the morning broke, and his suffering grew worse, he was too ill to think at all.