“No, I won’t like him—I won’t like anybody but you and my sister!”
“Sister!—who is your sister?”
The child’s face relapsed into an expression almost of idiotcy. “I don’t know—I never saw her. I hear her sometimes, but I don’t understand what she says.—Hush! come here!” and she stole to the window on tiptoe. Gawtrey followed and looked out.
“Do you hear her, now?” said Fanny. “What does she say?”
As the girl spoke, some bird among the evergreens uttered a shrill, plaintive cry, rather than song—a sound which the thrush occasionally makes in the winter, and which seems to express something of fear, and pain, and impatience. “What does she say?—can you tell me?” asked the child.
“Pooh! that is a bird; why do you call it your sister?”
“I don’t know!—because it is—because it—because—I don’t know—is it not in pain?—do something for it, papa!”
Gawtrey glanced at Morton, whose face betokened his deep pity, and creeping up to him, whispered,—
“Do you think she is really touched here? No, no,—she will outgrow it—I am sure she will!”
Morton sighed.