"What then?"

"I don't feel as if I had no right to tell you, sir; you and Miss Matilda. I spoke before I thought enough about it. She ain't noways sick; but she has had some sort o' sickness that has made her fingers all crumple up, like; they have bent in _so_, and she can't straighten 'em out, not a bit; and if you take hold of 'em you can only pull 'em open a little bit. And it hurts her so to do her work, poor thing!"

"Do what work?"

"All her work, Miss Matilda--same as if her hands was good. She washes and irons her clothes and his, and cooks for him, and makes her room clean; but it takes her all day 'most; and sometimes, she says, she gets out o' heart and feels like sittin' down and givin' up; but she never does, leastways when I see her. I go in and make her bed when I can; that's what she hardly can do for herself."

"I should think not!" said Matilda.

"She can't lift her hands to her head to put up her hair; and she suffers a deal."

"Is she so very poor too, Sarah?"

"No, Miss Matilda, it ain't that. He gets good wages and brings 'em home; but he's a pertiklar man and he expects she'll have everything just as smart as if she had her fingers."

"Then what can we do for her, Sarah?"

"I don't know, ma'am;--I was thinkin', if she could have one o' them rollers that wrings clothes--it tries her awful to wring 'em with her hands."

"A clothes-wringer! O yes," cried Matilda.

"What is that?" said David.

"I will shew you. Thank you, Sarah; it was quite right to tell us.

We'll see what we can do."

But after they had parted from Sarah the little girl walked quite silently and soberly homeward. David stopped at a grocer's to get some white grapes, and turned back to carry them to the sick child; and Matilda went the rest of her way alone.

CHAPTER XIII.

David was busy with his books all the evening, and Matilda, however much she wished for it, could get no talk with him. The opportunity did not come before Sunday evening, when they were all at tea in the little reception room. Then David took his cup and his piece of cake and came to Matilda's side and sat down.

"Dr. Berger has been to see that little boy," he said.

"Has he! And what does he say?"

"Says nothing ails him but want."

"Want?" Matilda repeated.

"Want, of everything. Specially, want of food--food good for anything; and of air."

"Want of air!" cried Matilda. "I don't wonder at it. I felt as if I should be unable to breathe if we staid there much longer. And I was strong and well. Just think, to anybody sick!--"

"He says, if he could be taken into the country he would begin to get well immediately; and he asked Mrs. Binn if she had friends anywhere out of the city."

"What did she say?"

"Said her father and mother and her aunt were all dead long ago; and that he hadn't a friend in the city or out of it. And she gave up work then for a minute or two, and sat down with her ap.r.o.n over her head; the only time I have seen her stop work at all. I think it was her ap.r.o.n, but I don't know; she hid her face in something. But she didn't cry, Matilda; not a drop."

"What can we do, David?"

"I took him some grapes, you know."

"Yes. Could he eat them?"

"Had no sort of difficulty about that."

"What can we do, David?" Matilda repeated anxiously.

"I have thought of this. We might pay the woman for a week or two as much as she gets by her washing and let her take him into her room and put down her fire and make him comfortable. She cannot open her window; but we can send them a decent bed and some clean coverings and some good things to feed the fellow with. I spoke to Mrs. Binn about giving up her washing; she said she couldn't afford to lose her customers. She might manage it for a week or so, though."

"And then? A week or two would not cure him, David?"

"I doubt if any time would, in that air. Perhaps we can get him out into the country by the end of the week or two."

"Oh, David!"--Matilda exclaimed after a few minutes of perplexed thinking. What more she would have said was cut short. They had been speaking very low, but those last two words had come out with a little energy, and Judy caught them up.

"O David, what? You have been plotting mischief long enough, you two; what are you up to? Grandmamma, make them tell. Matilda is making a fool of David. I wish you'd stop it."

David looked up and over towards Mrs. Lloyd with a frank smile.

"He don't look much like it," said the old lady composedly. "What are you afraid of, Judy?"

"Grandmamma, the whole house is getting on end," said the young lady, who was not always choice in the use of her words. "David and Matilda are busy contriving how to make a big hole in the bottom of their two purses that will let out the money easy; and Norton's hair is bristling already with fear."

"Fear of what, you goose?" said Norton in towering displeasure. "What's their money to me?"

"I thought you wanted it," said Judy coolly.

"Come here, Norton," said David; "come over here and let her alone.

What _are_ you afraid of, old fellow? Come! smooth out your wrinkles and let us know."

"I don't know anything about it," said Norton distantly. "You and Matilda went on an errand yesterday that lets anybody guess what you are up to to-day."

"Guess," said David. "Come, sit down here and guess."

"You are doing what Judy says."

"Holes in purses?" said David. "Go on; what do you think we are making the holes with?"

"Ridiculous stories about poor folks."

"I'll let you judge how ridiculous they are," said David; and he told about the sick boy and Mrs. Binn's six foot apartment. Norton's face would not unbend.